


from pieces of you

by justanotherblond



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baking, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Civil War Fix-It, Depression, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Bucky Barnes, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Panic Attacks, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Protective Steve Rogers, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Sokovia Accords, Stubborn Steve Rogers, Therapy, but thats why we got steve to help him amiright ladies, our boys are bad at communicating, that come in the form of dreams and arent always accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-15 08:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16930122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherblond/pseuds/justanotherblond
Summary: “Hey Buck,” Steve said, barely glancing up from his sketch to give Bucky a smile, “Welcome home.”Bucky cleared his throat and spoke without thinking, “Good to be back.”Stop. Rewind. Think.His heal was raised, halted mid step. He blinked a few times, eyebrow furrowed, and looked around the apartment. He only realized he knew what this place was when it dawned on him that he shouldn’t.***Bucky only starts to remembers after he dreams of Steve, but if those dreams are as scrambled as his brain, how much is he really remembering?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> make everything new 
> 
> _title after son lux's TEAR pt. 1_

Bucky started to remember after he saw Steve in a dream. 

It was a different Steve than the burly captain on the bridge. This one was small and physically frail, like a strong gust of wind would just blow him miles away. This Steve smelt like charcoal and generic soap with skin only rough around his fingers. The scariest thing about this Steve was his unnerving persistence and his breathing. 

Bucky’s first dream in decades (his sleep was usually black or bloody) started with a door. It was wooden, splintered in the corners, could easily be broken down which left the insides vulnerable. But Bucky didn’t crush it, instead he placed his flesh hand right below the numbers. 

236\. 

They rang in his mind like a bell. Should he know these numbers? He did but couldn’t put a reason as to why. They didn’t have anything to do with The Mission. 

Or had they? 

Was this a mission? He couldn’t remember the mission. 

He pushed the door open (not locked; stupid) and eased his way inside. 

It was a cramped apartment; one room with a curtain pulled back that usually hid the sleeping area. It was enough for one bed, a worn-down couch, card table with two wooden stools, and a kitchenette filled with Mrs. Roger’s hand-me-down kitchenware. 

He spotted Steve straight away. 

Bucky’s eyes hit Steve’s ankles first. Those dainty little things crossed over each other, resting atop the coffee table while Steve slouched on the couch. White bone peaking out from pale skin. One wrong grip and they’d just snap. Just one pinch of Bucky’s fingers, from his real hand no doubt, and they’d just-

Stop. Rewind. Start again. 

No such thing would happen here. This place was safe. At least, it felt safe. 

“Hey Buck.” Small Steve said, barely glancing up from his sketch to give Bucky a smile. The greeting turned any words in Bucky’s throat thick, clogging up his esophagus until he couldn’t get air through. “Welcome home.” 

Bucky cleared his throat, loosening the words. He spoke without thinking, “Good to be back.” 

Stop again. Pause. Think. 

His heal was raised, halted mid step. He blinked a few times, eyebrow furrowed, and looked around the apartment. He only realized he knew what this place was when it dawned on him that he shouldn’t.

Back? Back from where? Was he gone in the dream, too? 

His mind spun wheels, breaking coils, producing smoke, and clogging his brain to try to answer these questions. 

“How were the docks? Said you had some big shipment. Hope you didn’t blow out your shoulder again tryin’ to show off how tough you are.” Steve said, dragging his pencil to shade in whatever he was drawing. 

With the comment about the shoulder, Bucky rolled his back, noting the pinch that came with the action. Definitely not blown out, but sore. Will be worse after a night’s rest. But wasn’t that what he was doing now? 

“They’ll be fine, Stevie. See?” Bucky stretched his arms out in front of him. Human arms, both of them. He could feel the smirk on his face despite the knot in stomach so tight it burned. He twisted his arms around to prove his point, chuckling now without anything being funny. “They’re just fine.” 

His eyes snapped open and he was back in Romania. 

He shot up, gulping in breaths and swallowing them down before gasping again. His left hand had slipped its way out of the sleeping bag and was clutching at his chest. This apartment, somehow smaller than the one he’d just woken out of, was filled with biting cold air but he was sweating. 

After countless dragging minutes, he managed to right his breathing to near silent puffs. He let his arm drop to the side and flopped back down on his back, staring up at the ceiling to fully compose himself. 

He’s not safe here like he was at the apartment with Steve, but it’s not near death either. There’s no chair, not one to make him forget. No cold except for the night. No orders to shoot someone’s head clean off without a trace. 

He lulled his head over to glance at the metal arm. Wires poked out the hole torn in the side where he ripped the tracker straight out. Rolling to his right side, he breathed out his nose and let his eyes shut. They can’t find him. Not yet. 

But he didn’t let himself fall back to sleep. 

***

Bucky hadn’t felt the urge to research Steve Rodgers since he’d seen his own face in the Captain America exhibition at the Smithsonian almost a year (ten months, eight days) ago. He stared at it for a solid eight minutes (and thirty-four seconds, not like he was counting) before someone cleared their throat behind him to hint that he was blocking the view from other patrons. He didn’t even turn around to see who the smartass was before storming off to the nearest bathroom to hurl out the nothing he had in his stomach. 

He made a vow to not look back, took it as far as sprinting to the airport and booking a ticket with a fake credit card to the first country he saw listed on the departing schedule; Romania. 

But this morning Bucky was determined to find out why the man from the river once had thin bones. The Captain seemed pretty intent on knowing Bucky, caring for Bucky. If the dream from last night and the words The Captain spoke on the helicarrier (that rang in Bucky’s mind like a siren) were anything to go by, he had cared for Steve, too. He just needed to know why. 

He decided that the library was his best bet for finding answers as he laced up his shoes. The soles were wearing thin and the inner sides of both shoes were frayed. Still effective. He could run miles in these if he had to. He’d run in worse. 

He stood, zipped his jacket to the neck and pulled the sleeve on his left side down as far as it could go. 

He put on his black cap, tugged his sleeve again, and grabbed his apartment keys and his gun. Not like he didn’t already have three on him. And sockfuls of knives. And some up his sleeves, too. He could never be too careful. 

He tugged on the sleeve one last time before opening the door and quietly, silently pushing it shut behind him and locking it. 

One more deep breath and he took a step forward, paused, surveyed the hallway to his left. Empty. And the right. Also empty. He could hear the baby three doors down and in front babbling and the neighbor to his right listening to Romanian dubbed Wheel of Fortune. 

No immediate threats. He walked down the hall towards the staircase. He’d pause at every story, hand casually on his side above his handgun, listening for any form of suspicious activity. Bombs ticking, guns cocking, eight words that smelled like ash. When he was met with silence, he continued forward until he reached the first story. 

He finally willed himself to step outside the apartment complex, but just as he stepped in the direction of the library, his stomach growled. He came to a sudden halt, eyebrows pinching together as he stared at his abdomen. He stood there for a minute and twenty-two seconds trying to figure out why his stomach would make such a noise. Was it in need of repairs? Did the wires from his arm imbed so deep in his body that it reached his intestines? People steered around him on the sidewalk, occasionally casting a quizzical look over their shoulders as they passed. 

And at once, he remembered. 

Hungry, he was hungry. He must be some dense son-of-a-bitch to forget what hungry felt like. 

After the helicarrier crash, vomiting in the museum and flying to Bucharest, it took Bucky two weeks to remember what eating was. It was the first thing he remembered how to do and all it took was sitting in the fetal position on the grimy floor of his fish-stench apartment, stomach churned in cramping pain. His jaw would twitch occasionally, almost like he was chewing. 

Chewing. 

Right, yeah, chewing. Chewing and swallowing and eating. 

How the hell could he forget about eating? 

Probably because it’d been decades since he’d been given anything of substance that wasn’t pumped into his system through an I.V. 

Remembering how to shower had been…a different story. There were still times where he’d thought the terrible stench in his apartment was coming from something rotting in the fridge only to remember he hadn’t bathed in two weeks. 

At least he knew he was hungry now, because if he’d have to sit on the floor in his own hurl for days one more time, he might, well, hurl. 

With that, he started forwards towards the markets. 

There was a section in Bucharest (with a lot of fucking people) that had local grown produce sold through carts lining the street. It was crowded, enough that he could blend in but too much that it made him uneasy, and loud. But he didn’t trust those closed up shops with four walls that smelled too much of cigarettes and rotten fruit. He couldn’t get out of those quick if there was a bomb or if a handler spotted him. 

So, he went to the carts. He’d make quick conversation about the price, pay and leave. He’d get weird looks about not bargaining, but he didn’t care. He’d pay every cent he had if he could get in and out as quickly as possible. 

Bucky cut through the crowd, eyes surveying each cart quickly before moving to the next. He wanted food, but something sweet, but not candy. He didn’t remember when he got so picky, but he wasn’t about to settle for a bag of peanuts just because it was the first thing he saw. 

Then, his eyes landed on a cart of purple fruit that made his mouth water with sweet salvia. Plums. He had no memory of eating them but could almost feel his teeth sinking into the sturdy flesh before the juice would pop and spill into his mouth. 

His eyes stayed zeroed in on them as he approached the cart. The weathered vender woman quickly commented that it was half a Leu for three plums. Bucky didn’t respond, just picked up each plum to test their give and texture until he selected the perfect six. He dropped one Leu on the table and deposited his plums into the plastic bag the old vender handed him. 

Barely taking time to bid her thanks and goodbye, he turned on his heel and began his journey home, pleased that he had finished todays mission with as limited amount of time outside as possible. 

His journey up the stairs didn’t take as long as the journey down. It was always a less nerve-wracking process getting inside than going out. Bucky was still careful, he was always careful because people are caught when their guard is down. He made it down the hall in only five minutes, stopping momentarily outside each door to ensure everything inside was normal. 

Bucky unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside, closing it tightly behind him and locking it; the deadbolt, the extra deadbolt, and the third deadbolt on the top of the door. He felt light, the knot in his stomach not quite tight and the weight on his shoulders lessened. A hint of a smile on his face as he placed the bag of plums on the kitchen counter. He pulled one out, inspected the soft skin once more and squeezing lightly to check the give. Still mostly firm, just as it was when he had purchased it. Still good. 

He held it gently in his right hand, about to raise it to his mouth when he remembered. 

The research. The library. The quaint man from his dream and the large one from the river that he was supposed to read about today. He forgot about it. He completely fucking forgot about all of it. 

His body went tense, both hands and jaw clenched. Bucky, for the first time since the chair, felt the overwhelming urge to scream. The plum in his right-hand was as tense as him until it popped. 

Juice seeped through the crevices of his fingers. He looked down at it and relaxed his hand to let the sticky pulp slip to the floor. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, raking his left hand through his hair and holding his breath. 

“Shh-it.” he started to yell, quieting down on the last syllable as to not alert his neighbors. He shook his hand, releasing more pulp onto the floor before he remembered he’d have to clean it. He also forgot that he had food at home, prepared all his meals last night and had no need to buy any more. And he’d forgotten to check his apartment when he came inside, leaving him completely vulnerable. His shoulders hunched over, entire body weighed down with defeat. “Shit.” 

Then, he went to inspect the entirety of his apartment. He could never be too careful. 

*** 

Bucky walked down main street in Brooklyn, lights illuminating the crowded streets and showing off the smog that consistently hazed overhead. He skirted around the crowds with ease, back straight and confident, head held high even though he desperately wanted to duck behind an alley opening and wait for the target to hit the mark.

Keep your head down. Don’t look at anyone’s face. Don’t let them see yours. Shoot them if you do, but when no one’s looking. Don’t cause a scene. Get in and get out. 

But why would that matter in a dream where there was no target? 

But there was always a target, sometimes you have to go out and look for it. 

He became hyper aware of his hands stuffed into scratchy pockets of pressed pants and the snazzy suit jacket with a belt clinched around his waist and the tie tied tight enough to choke. But he just kept walking with that confident charm, smiling at a pretty young thing that strutted on by, skirt looking as soft his ma’s nice linens. He didn’t want to smile at her. She smiled first, goddamn it and Bucky’s ma didn’t raise no ill-mannered young man. 

“You’re one stupid son of a bitch, Rogers. You know lying on enlistments forms is a federal crime. I ain’t gonna be here to bail you out.” Bucky wanted to turn around to see who spoke but stopped halfway when he realized the words came from his mouth. It’s almost as if he was watching an old movie from the inside, reciting lines he didn’t even know he memorized and the only reason he knew he was speaking them is because he could feel his mouth fitting around the words. 

His attention snapped to his right, where the Steve with thin bones and a rattling ribcage sulked beside him. His hands were also stuffed in his pockets, but unlike Bucky, Steve’s shoulders were hunched over, and his head hung low enough that his ears almost touched them. He had a purse to his lips that looked an awful lot like a pout. 

Bucky cleared his throat, making the tie choke tighter. “You know, if tonight’s too much trouble, we could just go back home.”

“I’m fine, Buck.” Steve snapped, but he was still pouting. 

Bucky cleared his throat again and pulled on the tie. 

The air between them went silent again. And cold. Which was fine. Bucky knew what to expect with cold and silence. It doesn’t jump out and surprise you and Bucky can stay cold and silent for a long time, years even. He wouldn’t complain once. He never had, that’s how good of a soldier he was. Never once complained even when the skin on his finger tips went black and the still silence turned him to a statue that couldn’t move for days and he didn’t think he’d ever get warm. 

But the streets here were loud. Silence could never truly come to him in New York, which only made the tension between him and Steve unbearable. 

“Well, if you’re still ticked about last night, I’m sor-” 

“Bucky, drop it.” Steve hissed, mouth barely moving so the words slid out between his teeth. 

So, Bucky did. And they walked the rest of the way the World Exhibition (some scheme that Stark guy conned up to get everyone in New York jazzed about the future) in the same un-deafening silence. It was broken by a girl standing by her friend calling the two of them over. 

“Hey, Bucky!” the brunette called with a grin while her blonde friend sulked beside her. Bucky waved back, grin wide enough to match hers. 

These were their dates, Elizabeth and what’s-her-face, who Bucky only knew because he worked at the docks with Elizabeth’s brother. She made it quite clear that she had the hots for Bucky, always showing up with her brother’s lunch and twirling her hair and giggling if Bucky so much as walked by. Which was fine, he wouldn’t mind sinking into her for a final hurrah, especially if Steve was gonna be so sour. He had to take his mind off it somehow. 

“Whatchu tell her about me?” Steve asked, clearly displeased with the idea of double-dating. 

“Only the good stuff.” Because really, what bad things were there to say about Steve Rogers? And truth be told, he hadn’t told what’s-her-face anything. Mostly because he’d never seen what’s-her-face in his life. 

As soon as Bucky reached Elizabeth, she pulled him towards the large crowd. He glanced backwards towards Steve, who awkwardly shuffled towards the blonde friend and said something Bucky couldn’t hear even if he tried. Probably something bad. Steve was no good at sweet talking girls no matter how much Bucky practiced with him. 

Dancing with Elizabeth was a blur because he didn’t care for it. He’d twist his head to look at the platform with the flying car and then to the back towards sulking Steve and what’s-her-face while Elizabeth kissed and bit at his neck, slathering her vibrant red lipstick all over his throat. He couldn’t swing her probably while he was looking all over the place. All this kissing made him weak knees but not in the I needa throw this girl in the sac for a few hours but like he was gonna faint. 

A knot in his stomach tied and tightened like the goddamn tie on his neck as he tried to come up with a way out. He looked over towards Steve, but he was gone. For a split-second Bucky thought Steve took the blonde home but realized that neither of them would’ve liked that much at all. They both were too busy spending the night blowing each other off. 

But Steve wouldn’t have just up and scrammed home. He had to have done something stupid. That is, after all, what Steve Rogers did best. 

“Hold on, dollface,” Bucky said, cool smile on his face as he pushed Elizabeth away from his neck, making her frown, “I gotta find Steve. Make sure he’s not dead somewhere. Don’t get too lonely without me.” 

Even though he sounded cool as a cucumber, his heart felt like it would burst right out of his throat. He rushed away from the dance floor, knocking shoulders with some overzealous dancers and almost doing a dance himself to weave out of the crowd. Once out, he took long strides across through the exhibition, eyes darting for the frail boned fuck who couldn’t be left unsupervised for two seconds without getting in trouble. 

_Keep your eye on the mission. Don’t let them out of your sight. Don’t look away even for a second you goddamn, fucking, stupid piece of shit, broken machine, dumbfuck-_

Bucky found him by a propaganda poster that begged young bachelors to enlist because of course that’s where he’d be. 

He swallowed his hammering heart back down to his chest and jogged up the steps towards Steve, knocking him on his shoulder perhaps a bit too harshly. Steve was jostled forward before twisting around towards Bucky. 

“You’re kinda missin’ the point of a double date.” 

Steve scoffed, turning back to the poster, “So, that’s what we’re calling it now?” 

“You really gonna do this again?” Bucky said, and Steve probably thought he was talking about enlisting. He might’ve been, but there was something else on his mind that he couldn’t quite dig out. 

Steve shrugged, back still to Bucky, “Figured I’d try my luck.” 

Bucky sighed, his tie tightening once again so he pulled it down even though he just wanted to take the damn thing off, “I’d say you’re the most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever met, Rogers, but I liked your ma too much.” 

Steve didn’t say anything. Bucky turned back over to the dance floor to see Elizabeth staring at him, waving her hand to beckon him over. He glanced back to Steve but just saw his shoulder blades sticking out behind his jacket. 

He ran his hand through his hair, which was short. He couldn’t remember it ever being short like this. 

He breathed out through his nose, still looking at Steve’s shoulders, “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” 

Steve didn’t respond. 

Bucky’s eyes stung like he’d just dove into the community pool at central park with them wide open only he also felt a sharp pain in his stomach, like he always felt as a kid before he was gonna cry. 

He didn’t expect Steve to say anything as he turned back towards Elizabeth. 

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.” 

Before he registered what he was doing (he never acted without thinking first; everything needed a plan), he beelined straight to Steve and pulled him into the tightest hug he could manage. 

“You’re a punk.” He breathed out. 

“Jerk,” Steve wheezed, obviously taken by surprise. Bucky didn’t let go. 

“Quit it, you big galoot, you’re squashing me,” Steve grumbled against Bucky’s chest, but Bucky could feel him fighting off a smile. “You act like I’m not gonna see you again before tomorrow. We share an apartment, you know.” 

Bucky pulled away, clapping him on the back once before stepping away. 

“Don’t win the war ‘til I get there.” Steve said. Bucky saluted him before running back to Elizabeth, but it didn’t feel like it was done. 

Not by a long shot. 

Bucky’s eyes opened to bright light filtered in to his apartment through his newspaper covered windows. He was still laying down, heart rate normal, breathing regulated. 

He almost wanted to go back to sleep and rewind it. There’s was something he was missing, something he needed to figure out or the short circuiting in his brain would go hay wire and something would catch fire. 

But dreams are only dreams. There wasn’t any proof that any of this had happened, especially if his mush of a brain was anything to go by. Captain America said he knew him, but how could Bucky trust that? 

He couldn’t afford to go back to sleep. He had to check the apartment. 

***

Bucky went out to the city with one objective in mind. Go to the library. 

Go to the library. Go to the library. Go to the library. 

It circled around his brain as he started down the street, face pointed towards the ground and hat pulled firmly down his brow. 

Once he arrived, he stared at sliding glass doors in bewilderment while patrons eased through and the magic doors opened and closed on their own. He eventually (three minutes and fifty-four seconds later) worked up the cojones to step forward, taking slow and careful strides until he stood right before the doors. They slid open before him. He inhaled deeply through his nose, holding it as he pushed the bridge of his hat further down, fiddled with his left sleeve and walked inside. When he was secure inside the building and the doors slid shut behind him, he exhaled. 

He searched through each area of the humble library to survey for any threats. There was nothing in the immediate area. Then he sought out the history section. Most of the books were covered with Romanian text, but he found one area dedicated to American history. 

He paced the aisles, scanning each book for anything with the words America, Captain, or Steve. Once his eyes glided across a title with American, Captain, and Steve, he came to a skidding halt. 

_When He was Steve Rogers: The History Behind the Greatest Captain in America_

Bucky snatched the book off the shelf and searched for a quiet table to read. 

He sat a barren area, completely void of any studying college student or retired professor and put his back towards the wall, giving him direct view of every exit and window. 

He flipped halfway through the textbook, landing on a page where boney dream Steve was sitting on a table, needles poking through his arms. The page adjacent showed Steve from the river, the big and strong Steve, coming out of some contraption while half conscious. 

Something happened in the space between the pages, where the Steve that kept creeping into Bucky’s dreams turned into the one he almost drowned, but Bucky couldn’t even see the words. Instead his eyes went back and forth and back and forth between frail Steve and big Steve until they blurred together. He hadn’t just dreamed it up. It had happened. It had happened, he just didn’t know when or how or why or even how he knew small Steve in the first place. But he knew him, knew him well enough to care about him and pull him out of the river and see him in his dreams. 

With shaking fingers, he flicked through a large chunk and landed on a picture near the back of the book that at first was fine and easy for to digest. It was a group picture of soldiers, Steve’s soldiers, that clicked somewhere in Bucky’s mind that he couldn’t place, like he’d just seen the faces of these men in blurred crowds in the streets of Bucharest. But he saw himself in the face of a man. 

He leaned forward, nose almost touching the page as he stared at himself dressed as a soldier that he couldn’t remembered being. 

_Pictured above: The Hollowing Commandos. This elite combat group, led by Captain Steve Rogers, comprised mostly of POWs Rogers had rescued himself. Most notable member is James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, Rogers’ right hand man and only Commando to give his life for his country._

This was different than seeing his face in a museum. There weren’t words when he just stared himself in the face, just a giant picture and a monotone voice vibrating from loud speakers, shaking so bad it sounded like gibberish. 

Now there were words in bold sitting right in front of his face telling him things about himself that he couldn’t remember. Bubbled up voices that were burned into his brain made sure of that. Voices that spoke over and over and over and every time he thought they would stop they’d start from the beginning. 

_Wipe him and start over._

_Wipe him and_

_Wipe him and start_

_Wipe him_

_Wipe_

_Wipe him and start over_

They had made him so many things that “James Barnes” was a stranger. He was Soldat, Winter, Yasha, Ghost. Never a James. Never a Bucky. Bucky almost felt nice nestled against his tongue, resting in his mouth to wait for a time to be released but if he opened his mouth right now he might scream. 

His breathing was erratic and strong enough to dent the page with every exhale. He crooked his right arm over the front of the book, blocking the view from all the people who didn’t occupy the room. He felt the eyes of no one rake over him. Could they recognize him? Would they say anything? He’d break their necks before they could. 

The words on the page kept shaking and Bucky couldn’t read one full sentence without feeling dizzy.

_Freight Train…to capture Armin Zola…mission incomplete…accident…death…never found a body…_

The words stopped when a sharp pressure burst in the back of his head, like he’d smacked it against concrete. He remembered this. The pain, the cold, the unbearable mixture of the two when he saw red gush out of the hollow stump where his left arm used to be. A hazy German voiced devil speaking words of arsenic strapped Bucky down and studied him. 

_“The process has already started!”_

_“Cut him deeper. See how long he will bleed.”_

_“Put him on ice. He will make a great machine.”_

He shot up, catching the chair behind him before it clattered against the floor. That would bring too much attention, more than he had already garnered. 

He left the book open on the table and swiftly stepped towards the sliding doors. 

***

“Get down!” A man’s screech whistled through the air in time with a bomb that dropped behind them. 

Bucky dove into the trench, knees knocking against dirt and sending a cloud of it up his nose and into his eyes. His helmet clanked against his head, producing a pain that was forgotten in a second when another wave of bombs exploded haphazardly around him. Screams were drowned out by the soaring of bullets. 

Two other men, men from the picture in the library’s textbook, jumped in beside him to take cover in the trench. One had a mustache like a French man but the voice of an American. The other was black. 

“Bucky, behind you!” the French-looking-American screamed, and Bucky twisted his spine and shot blindly into the dark. 

And suddenly it all…stopped. 

Blue lightening that came from the mouths of tanks zapped away Nazis as if they were never there to begin with. It must be coming from the allies. They must be saved.  
Until the nozzle of a tank aimed directly at Bucky and the two men. 

“Cover!” Bucky bellowed, but it had already shot. 

Then there was nothing. No light. No sound. Not until he heard the devil speak. 

“What is this one?” 

“His tags say he is 32557.”

“Yes. Yes, this is the one. Use him. He is perfect.” 

There was something pumping in his veins, thick like syrup and sharp as jagged rocks. He couldn’t scream, his lungs felt like jello and the only movement he could make was the lulling of his head from side to side. 

“Give him more. Fry his brain so he can’t remember. The electricity, dummkopf, you use the electricity.” 

And it was a pain that felt more like home than the apartment did. 

“Ah, yes. Turn him into the beast. Make him strong. He will rip nations with his bare hands. You will not rest until I see it.” 

The process was never ending. They pumped him full of medicine then shocked him stupid. How long had he been here? When could he leave? He wanted to go home. 

He clung desperately to his identification numbers, reciting them like a prayer. Maybe someone would hear him. Maybe he’d be found. 

“Bucky?” A frantic voice, deep and familiar, asked. 

Bucky? Who the hell was Bucky? He was 32557. 

“Bucky!” Someone was shaking him, begging him to climb out of the unconscious state he’d grown so comfortable in. His bleary eyes blinked open and there stood Steve from the river. Big and muscular but afraid. 

_Don’t just let him stand there! Finish him, you piece of shit! End it! Kill him!_

_Kill him!_

_**Kill him!** _

Bucky lunged for his throat, his teeth barred like a rabid animal, digging his nails into Steve’s jugular until hot blood poured down his forearms.

***

Bucky walked into an old corner store in the outskirts of Bucharest that advertised selling American products. It smelled like cleaning fluid, dust and fermented produce. 

After yesterday, he had no intention on trying his luck again at the library, but his research wasn’t complete. He’d have to dig a little farther before he could determine how and how well he knew Steve Rogers.

A teenage clerk, maybe nineteen, stood at the counter, fingers with sharp and bright blue nails flipped through pages of a magazine that rested beside the cash register. She didn’t look up when Bucky entered the store. 

“Welcome.” She monotoned as the door swung shut behind him. 

He didn’t say anything back as he looked around the tiny shop for newspapers. When he spotted them in the back, he stepped too quickly and bumped into a stand of chips, knocking a few bags to the floor. He stiffened at the noise. He never moved so carelessly. He wasn’t getting enough sleep and clearly needed repairs. 

At the noise, the clerk’s eyes slowly dragged away from the magazine and lit up as soon as they saw Bucky. She leaned further across the counter, pushing her chest forward and rear out. She twisted her hair around her fingers the same way Elizabeth had. 

“I will clean that.” She said with a wave of her hand when Bucky bent to pick up the bags. “Can I help you find anything?” 

He wasn’t going to respond, but she pushed herself away from the counter and walked around it towards Bucky. She strode close enough that Bucky had to suppress the overwhelming urge to gag at the stench of her heavily perfumed body.

“Do you sell any newspapers with Captain America?” Bucky asked, shifting onto his heels and away from her, “I have to do research on him for a college course.” 

Bucky was good at lying, digging up one of the thousand people who lived inside him at the snap of a finger. 

The clerk nodded and pursed her lips like Bucky had said something awful serious.

“There are a few. He is a popular man, Captain America. Here, I will show you.” She strutted towards the back. Bucky glared above her head and followed her to the newspapers. 

“Here we are.” 

She wasn’t lying when she said the papers were old. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if some of these had been here during the turn of the century. She bent at the waist to pick out newspapers that fit what Bucky had asked for. 

On the opposite shelf facing the newspapers were magazines that were just as old. 

The bright red borders around Times caught Bucky’s attention, particularly the one titled “Time’s Person of the Year: Steve Rogers” which adorned a picture of a pensive Steve decked in full Captain America uniform. It was from 2011. The statement at the bottom read that this was the year he was found frozen in the Artic. 

With meticulous fingers, he snatched the magazine and stuffed it into his back pocket. 

The clerk straightened up, placing a stack of newspapers into Bucky’s arms with a smile as sticky as honey. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and turned on her heel, strutting again towards the front of the shop. 

On their way to the front, they past a small stack of disorganized school supplies. There were bright little tongues of paper called Post-it Notes. Bucky grabbed a package and slipped it into his pocket beside the magazine. Then plucked a journal in the same pile and slid it inside his coat. 

“I forgot to ask for your name,” She glanced over her shoulder, eyelashes fluttering just so, “Mine is Adelina.” 

His tongue curled around soldier, but what came out instead was “Bucky.” 

The name had been a place holder after the fall of the helicarriers when he knew nothing except finishing the mission. Now that he knew the name was definitely his (the only good thing he got from library) he clung onto it like a possessive child would a toy. 

“You’re new in town, no? I have not seen you. Do you go to the university? I do, too. Here, give me your number.” She turned around, digging into her backpack to pluck out her phone. 

Bucky’s lucky his feet were trained to be silent because she didn’t hear him leave. 

Back at his apartment, he spread each paper out across his kitchen table. There were at least ten different headlines that were of interest. 

May of 2014: _Natasha Romanoff Fights Senators: Claims Avengers are Best Qualified to Fight for United States, Even in Light of Recent Events._

June of 2014: _Captain America Uses Shield for Hydra? How Our Nation’s Defense Team has been Working Against U.S. for Decades._

October of 2014: _Steve Rogers Friends with Notorious Assassin the Winter Soldier. May be Fallen POW James Barnes._

January of 2015: _The Rise of Ultron Marks Fall of the Avengers._

Two weeks ago, March of 2015: _Captain America Leads Mission in Lagos, Ends in Fire that Caused Multiple Casualties. United Nations Calls for Solution._

He read the Times Magazine but ended up using most of it for pictures. It was a syrupy sweet depiction of Steve that explained how much he cared for the nation and that his unwavering determination created the most prominent hero in American history. Bucky was mentioned for a second, saying him and the Captain were great friends since  
childhood, but didn’t say why. It never said why. 

He’d scribbled each part of his dreams he could remember into the journal, then scratched out anything that made no sense with what the newspapers said. Carefully, very carefully, he cut out pictures and snippets of articles that corresponded with his dreams and pasted them alongside his chicken scratch. Then, he pasted articles that were important but had otherwise no connection to the scenes that plagued his sleep in the back of the journal. He coordinated them all with the Post-it notes. 

He’d concluded that there were two Starks (the crook who hosted the exhibition and an older bachelor/inventor who was alive today), Steve is on a team, one larger than and possibly more strategic than Bucky is alone, some company named SHEILD (good guys) was just Hydra (bad guys), some people know that he is the Winter Solider, and Steve Rogers resides in New York. 

He closed the journal and exhaled. He’d read it again tomorrow. 

***

Bucky sat on the worn-down couch, springs digging into his thighs as he watched Steve putz around the apartment. He picked up a glass from the table only to put it on the kitchen counter, then closed the blinds a little, the opened them again. 

“C’mon kid, quit pacing. You’re making me nervous.” Bucky said, leaning back to wait for Steve to sit beside him. Steve said he had something important to tell Bucky, something that couldn’t wait another night, mostly because the next day Bucky was off on a ship to Europe to fight for his country. 

Steve darted back to the kitchen, putting the glass in the sink. Bucky had finally lost his patience. 

“Sit down, Rogers, before I’m old and gray.” 

“I’m going. I’m going.” Steve grumbled, walking to the blinds to shut them again before going to the couch. 

“What’s got you all riled?” Bucky nudged Steve’s knee with his own. Steve jostled to the side, skootching a little farther away from Bucky. Bucky pretended he didn’t notice.

Steve picked at the skin around his finger nails, then ran his palms along his trousers. He let a deep breath out, then sucked it back in. He picked at his fingers again. 

“Stevie, you’re stalling. You said you had something important so spill.” Bucky said, nudging Steve’s knee again before Steve twisted it away out of his reach. Steve let out another deep breath. 

“You don’t gotta go, Buck.” His voice was thick, like mucus lined his throat. He stopped picking, but his eyes stayed on his hands. 

“What are you talking about Steve? I gotta. You know I gotta. My papers came in and everything.” 

“It ain’t right, them making you go. It just ain’t right.” Steve shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed and nose scrunched. “I care about you-”

Bucky scoffed. Was that it? “I care about you, too, Stevie.” 

“No, no. I care about you. Actually care.” He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his shaky hand down his crinkled brow like it would ease the tension. The shaky hand slid from his forehead to his chest, resting right above his weak heart. “Right here, Bucky, right here.” 

Stop. 

This was not a foreseeable action. 

Maybe they spent too much time settled together on the couch, letting the day pass by with nothing but the other’s company. Maybe they told each other a bit too much about what gets the other off. Maybe they cuddled a bit too close on cold nights (“It ain’t wrong if it’s to keep warm, Stevie, you know that.”). Spooned up together like lovers, hands wandering a little too far because that’s just what buddies do when their friend is lonesome. Maybe they were too comfortable when they couldn’t see nothing, the black of night like a safety blanket they both clung onto. 

But none of that meant nothing unless you made it mean something. 

Bucky blinked once, twice. His mouth hung open and it’s a good think his ma wasn’t there, or she’d put up a fuss about how he’d catch flies. His brain, not even a scrambled egged, burnt to shit mess quite yet, fizzled and stopped like a broken coffee maker. There were no words to say. He couldn’t think of any. 

Steve dared to glance up, but his eyes darted back to his hands the second they saw Bucky’s face. He stretched a piece of skin so far from his nail it tore and started to bleed. The room was choked in silence for minutes. “Look, I know we can’t-”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Bucky asked, heart beating louder than his words. 

“You would’ve thrown me out.” Steve fisted his own trousers, protruding knuckles so white you could almost see through them. He pushed himself off the couch, stomping across the apartment in a frenzied pace once again. “You don’t gotta say it back.” 

“Well, it ain’t like we can do anything now-”

“You know what? Forget it, forget I said anything.” 

“Sit down, champ. C’mon, we can forget it if you want. I’m with you no matter what.” 

_“’Til the end of the line.”_ But it wasn’t Bucky who said it. The words fell from blue lips, eyes sincere but swollen shut and how the hell did Steve end up bloody beneath him? The air was loud around them, enough to chill them to the bone and they weren’t in the apartment anymore, but thousands of feet in the air. Below them that terrible blue river. 

Bucky’s hands stung, throbbing in time with his chest because his heart was gonna beat straight outta him. He brought a fist back, ready to smash it into Steve’s mouth one last time to hear a sickening crunch instead of anymore words he didn’t understand. Just as he was about to bring his fist down, he was back on the couch, Steve still pacing in front of him. 

“I care about you.” Bucky said, but his eyes were wild. 

_No, I don’t!_

_No, I don’t!_

_**No, I don’t!** _

“No, you don’t!” Steve yelled, rounding on him quick and suddenly he was big again. “You’re the one who threw me in the river!” 

***

Bucky didn’t dream again in Romania. He left to find Steve.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> these hollow things push back sleep

Steve trudged up the stairs to his apartment, legs like lead and eyelids just as heavy. His uniform was itchy, pinching around his torso and the shield kept chafing his neck. He felt dirt so caked to his skin that one shower didn’t feel like it would be enough. 

It was a basic mission. A get in and get out deal, a bad hold up at the biggest bank in New York. The catch was all the robbers were soviet trained combat fighters who used dirt-bombs (something of their own creation) to create divergences. Only Steve and Sam had been sent and since Sam couldn’t see shit through the dirt and therefore couldn’t fly through, Steve had to fight most of them by himself. 

But he’d still take this crap shoot of a mission any day as long as he had a say in the matter. 

They had to play it low at the moment. Take the easy jobs on American soil that wouldn’t cause much of a ruckus if things didn’t go as planned. He had Secretary Ross, Lagos and Wanda to thank for that. 

He had a week to make his decision about the Accords. Tony was doing everything in his power to make Steve see it his way while Steve was stubbornly arguing the opposite. He wasn’t going to turn his nose up at potential threats and he wouldn’t leave innocent people out there without protection. 

Once he reached his apartment, he grabbed the key from under the blank welcome mat and unlocked the door. Then, without checking to see if people were watching, he dropped the key on the ground and kicked the mat back over it. If they wanted to get inside his apartment, so be it. All they’d have to take is the T.V. he barely knew how to use and his state-of-the-art kitchen ware. All his real stuff was property of the Smithsonian. 

He should have noticed something was off the second he walked in the door, but he was just too damn tired. Every blind was drawn closed even though Steve opened them every morning to let natural light filter in throughout the day. “It’ll keep the bugs at bay” his ma always said. 

He was about to beeline straight to the bathroom to take the longest and hottest shower he had in months and then straight to bed, but something caught his eye. Or rather, the lack of something. 

The coffee table in his living room, a chipped, modest little thing, always had an open file splayed across it where Steve would pour over information every night for an hour. He’d note down any new plan that came to mind and any new information he managed to see between the words, in the fine print. Ever since Natasha gave it to him, he put it on his coffee table, sat on the couch, and studied it. 

It wasn’t there. 

Steve froze, staring at the empty table. He felt something very cold wash over him, like he’d swallowed a handful of snow. He never moved it. Someone else must have. Someone that he didn’t let in and didn’t want in. Someone who was very likely still inside. Quickly, and very, very quietly, he swung his shield from his back to his arm and held it in front of him. 

He moved with calculated and quiet steps through to the next room, tensing at every creak in the floorboards his heavy boots caused. He was never a light walker, even when he was skin and bones. Bucky said he had the loudest feet in all Brooklyn. 

_“You tryin’ to wake up the whole block with that stomping, Rogers, or just me? ‘Cause if you wanted to wake up just me, you got it.”_

Steve nearly walked straight past his kitchen table where a man sat, back straight and face in the shadows. The file about himself opened in front of him. He sat still, as if he were made of stone, until Steve caught him in the corner of his eye. Steve just kept himself from yelping as he twisted towards the man, defensive stance and shield lifted higher. 

The intruder was large, burly and still. He leaned back against the chair but nothing about him seemed comfortable. He was wearing black. A shadow covered the bottom of his face and hair curtained over the rest. But his eyes, sharp and clear and blue, cut through. 

Bucky. 

Steve froze. He felt that cold cover him again, but not with fear. He got that same chill in his gut he always did when he caught eyes with Bucky. Well, only after – 

After…

The shield slipped from Steve’s grip, shattering the tense silence as it crashed against the floor. 

“Shit!” Steve yelped, startled at his own ruckus, and scurried to pick up the shield and put it on his back. “Sorry, sorry.” 

Bucky didn’t say anything. He didn’t move, didn’t jump with the noise. His lips were pressed in a thin line, face stoic, but his breath was heavy. 

“You shouldn’t leave your key outside.” Bucky said eventually, voice as cold as Steve’s stomach. 

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to carry them with me I just uh…” Steve picked along the cuticles of his right hand with his thumb without looking down, “forgot.” 

His hand twitched, almost like he wanted to reach over and touch Bucky to make sure he was real. After almost a year of searching and coming up with nothing, no leads, no news, no signs, here Bucky sat at his kitchen table. 

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, voice wavering at the end. He cleared his throat. He sounded like a child. 

“Romania.” Bucky said. “It was far.” 

Steve nodded, and Bucky looked back down at the file. 

“I know some of this,” Bucky said, pressing his pointer finger firm against the file. “but very little about it.”

It was the only explanation Steve got about the surprise visit. He wasn’t going to push. Something here seemed too fragile, like a sheet of ice that froze over a window. One wrong tap and it would shatter. 

Steve shifted from one foot to the other, watching Bucky glare down at the file like the harder he stared the more he would understand. Steve rubbed a hand over his head, glancing at the kitchen. He looked back over towards Bucky, dropped his hand and sighed. He supposed Bucky, though thick and bulky, hadn’t had a meal in a long while. He turned on his heel and walked towards the kitchen. 

“Hungry?” he asked over his shoulder. He didn’t wait for a response before he turned on the stove, pulling a Tupperware out of the fridge full of chicken soup. Bucky didn’t answer. Steve dumped the soup into a pot to start heating it through. He looked intently at it as it began to bubble, knowing if he looked over at Bucky he’d never stop staring.  
It was silent for a moment save for the quiet bubbling of the soup and Steve and Bucky’s breathing. They were out of sync, one would breathe in while the other breathed out. Steve held his breath and waited for Bucky to exhale before he did, too. 

“I’ve been having these…dreams,” Bucky said, breaking the silence. Steve willed himself to keep staring at the soup, but he nodded. “Dreams with you.” 

Steve faltered, stirred a little too hard so hot soup splashed his wrist. He grit his teeth. 

Bucky had been dreaming of Steve. That must mean Bucky remembered him and them and everything in between. Maybe Steve was pushing his luck. Maybe Bucky didn’t remember much at all. But if he didn’t, then why did he pull him from the river? 

“I can’t help but wonder how much of them actually happened.” 

Steve felt a hole open in his gut, one that was tender and easily open for disappointment. So, Bucky didn’t remember. 

_Don’t push your luck, Stevie, ‘cause you pout when you don’t get your way. And you look awful when you pout._

They went back to silence. Bucky still hadn’t moved. Steve still stirred the pot. 

When the soft hiss of steam wafted into Steve’s face, he figured that the soup was hot enough to eat. He pulled two bowls from the cabinet, placed the on the counter and stopped, ladle in his hand. If he was going to shatter the ice, might a well get it over with. 

“You remember you pulled me from the river?” He asked, voice quiet as if the softness would only cause the ice to splinter, not shatter. 

Bucky nodded. 

“Do you…do you know why?” Steve began ladling the soup into the bowls. His hands shook. Some soup dripped onto the counter. 

“Kind of been wondering that myself.” Bucky looked up, expression hardening (as if that were possible) when he saw Steve’s face, “I don’t know, Steve.”

Steve realized he was pouting, so he quickly righted his face and grabbed the two bowls and walked back to the table. 

Bucky scrunched his nose at the bowl placed in front of him. Fat noodles and wet chicken covered in broth. They’d slip down his throat and make his stomach all sloshy. 

“Okay, so what about these dreams?” Steve said, scooping up a spoonful of hot broth, “what happens in them?” 

Bucky looked at Steve and then back at his soup. He shrugged, body tense. 

Steve waited for another response, but after a minute of stiff silence he concluded he wasn’t getting anything more. 

“Okay, well, you say you don’t know if they actually happened,” Steve said, and Bucky nodded, one stiff jerk of his head. “Well, what if I help.” 

Bucky raised his eyebrows like he didn’t believe him. He still hadn’t touched his soup. “How?” 

“I was there, wasn’t I? I mean in the past, not, you know, in your dreams. I could tell you everything I remember and then you tell me if any of it sounds familiar.” Steve explained,  
then brought the spoonful of soggy noodles to his mouth. He swallowed loudly and continued, “For one thing, you hate soup.” 

He would’ve made something different, but he was hungry, and soup was all he had. That and a bottle of mustard and a some of a cake Wanda made him. He’d been waiting until the fridge was cleaned out before he shopped again.

Bucky looked back down at his soup and sneered like it had personally offended him. Almost like if he’d been given permission to not eat it, he’d push the bowl away. 

“Doesn’t seem like that’s changed.” Steve laughed, slurping another spoonful. 

“You’ve always been a noisy eater.” Bucky grumbled, stabbing his spoon into the soup as if to kill the chicken all over again, “Doesn’t seem like that’s changed.” 

Once he realized what he said, his eyes widened, and his stabbing stopped. He slowly dragged his attention to Steve, searching his face for a reaction. 

Steve schooled his expression fast, worried that if he made to big of a reaction (like jumping up and hugging Bucky and grinning like the damn Cheshire cat) he’d scare Bucky right back to Romania. He put his spoon in his bowl and pushed it aside. 

“Look, I think it will help. And maybe you can tell me things that you remember, too. Can’t hurt, right?” 

“Guess not.” Bucky grumbled. 

“Great! Well, um, let’s see,” Steve paused, scrunching his nose and thinking back to the basics of Bucky Barnes. He couldn’t start with the good stuff, that would surely send Buck running. “You worked at the docks for two years.” 

He looked at Bucky. His expression hadn’t changed, so Steve continued. 

“You uh, you hated getting your hair cut but you liked it to look slick. You dated Molly Stoverman in the eighth grade even though you thought her breath was sour. You remember Molly?” 

Bucky shook his head. 

Steve raised his hands and nodded, “Alright, that’s fine. Wasn’t much to remember. Uh, what else…” He drummed his fingers on the table, “Well, your ma worked as a seamstress and your pops was a bank teller. Uh, we met in the second grade – you were supposed to be in the third, but you got held back –after my ma met yours in the hallway and asked if she could babysit. The first day I was over you said my nose was too big for my head and I cried…does uh, does any of this sound familiar?” 

Bucky paused, still glaring at his soup, “I’ll let you know in the morning.” 

***

War almost smelt like camp smoke with burnt flesh. 

Bucky sat outside Steve’s tent, smoking a cigarette to help evade the charcoaling egg smell that constantly surrounded their camp with the pungent odor of tobacco. 

Three days ago, Steve had saved him. Three days ago, Bucky saw what the grand ol’ United States did to his best guy and even though Bucky had specifically told him not to do anything stupid. 

That little fucker. 

And it’s been three days since Bucky and Steve said a word to each other. Things were…tense. They didn’t part ways in Brooklyn on a good note and Steve was avoiding him. 

Which was fine. Fuck him, if he’s gonna be so grouchy. Not like Bucky had time nor desire to chit chat anyway. 

He was stilling fighting away the image of that creepy of a German man poking and prodding his guts until Bucky couldn’t breathe. 

God, he’d love to beat the brains outta that weaselly fuck if he didn’t feel so queasy. 

He didn’t come back right. He was feverish with no fever. Tingly and jumpy without coffee. Couldn’t sleep even if they marched seven hours and twice as many miles. Felt something squirting through his veins, like the buzzing in his hand after it would fall asleep but no matter how much he shook it out, it didn’t stop. 

What the hell did they pump him with anyway? 

_Another dose, dummkopf, I can see him squirming._

_Shoot it into his stomach, it will absorb faster._

_I don’t like that look he gave me. Schmied, shook him again._

_Hydra has never known greatness before this man! What an asset he will make!_

_The Americans, those fools. He will crush Captain America’s skull between his fingers._

_Arschgeige, another dose before he wakes up, I see his eyes moving. Come on, deeper! Rip his stomach open if you have to! Tear it up and dig it inside._

_Tear him apart_

_Rip him to shreds._

_Start again._

_Rip-_

“Buck?” 

Bucky jumped back, dropping his cigarette and saw Steve standing above him, peering down like Bucky had just done something awful. 

He quickly composed himself, licking his thumb to snuff out the butt in front of him. Waste of a perfectly good smoke. 

“Yeah?” He snapped, glaring down as he twisted his thumb deeper into the extinguished, smooshed butt. Crushing it like a little bug. A little pest. Smashing its insides until they become its outsides. 

“Can we talk?” Steve asked quietly, any amount of cock-sure Captain America scooped right out of him. It was almost like becoming big and strong took away any once of strength Steve had. Because even though he was tiny, that shit was always up for a fight, even with knuckles bruised or just off death’s door after a bad case of pneumonia. 

Bucky looked up, but still twisted his thumb, “Talk about what?” 

Steve glanced around the camp, making sure every Commando was far away at their stationed posts or resting inside their own tents. He brought his hand up like he was gonna chew his thumbnail until it bled but, like he just realized what he was doing, dropped quickly back down. 

Bucky watched him with unnerving focus. 

“You know about our, um…” Steve cleared his throat, “Our conversation.” 

Bucky knew what he was talking about because of course he knew. His heart did a weird thump bump out of time anyway. 

“Don’t see why it matters.” Bucky said, “You seemed pretty peeved afterwards, if memory serves me correctly.” 

“Maybe that’s why we should talk about it.” Steve snapped and for a second Bucky could see a glance of that determined little shit behind the muscle mask. But then he sighed, deflating a little, shoulders slouching and face falling, “Look, I didn’t mean to get so sore, Buck, but I’m still mad at you.” 

“For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sore with me, too.” Bucky mumbled. 

“Buck –” 

“Just forget it, Steve. Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Bucky sneered, digging in his back pocket for another cigarette and stuck it between his teeth. “You got a light?”

And that was that. It was forgotten. Never brought up again. 

He wasn’t an idiot, and neither was Steve. It was for the better, after all. But then Bucky had to go and fall and what the hell kind of better was that? 

***

Steve tried to set Bucky up in his bedroom while he took the couch, but Bucky wouldn’t step foot inside his room. 

“That’s fine.” Steve acquiesced. He pulled extra sheets from the linen closet and put them on the couch. Bucky wouldn’t use them. He fell asleep on the floor. He didn’t sleep much. 

It took him three days to use the couch. 

“It’s too soft.” Bucky explained. He looked sore. He kept twisting his neck to the side and rubbing at it, but as soon as he caught Steve staring he’d stop. Dropping his hand to his side and tensing like a possum playing dead. 

***

Steve thought, only for a split moment, that he should inform someone that Bucky had returned. Surely this wasn’t the best set up for him, especially considering how the last time they’d seen each other he nearly beat Steve to death. 

But would telling anyone help at all? Would that be the best for Bucky? How would the Accords effect this? Would Bucky get locked up for crimes against the States? Would something get dug up that’s been long buried? 

Steve didn’t need to answer these questions. The next morning, he found his phone smashed on the kitchen tile. 

***

Bucky noticed Steve watching, a look on his face that said I’m sorry. Like a pensive stare with sad eyes. Almost like he blamed himself. Bucky wanted to scream at him to shut up. Got nothing to be sorry for, punk. But Steve never said anything, so Bucky didn’t. 

***

“He drives me fucking insane.” Steve snarled, coffee with too much cream in one hand and his other hand tightened to a white fist. 

“What did you expect? That’s Tony’s favorite past time.” Natasha responded, coolly sipping her drink despite its boiling temperature. She never added cream to cool it down. _I like my coffee black_ she’d smirk when someone asked, and after being showed the movie Airplane, Steve would only groan and beg her not to finish the line. 

He and Natasha walked down the streets of Manhattan after she had dragged him out of Avengers Tower, worried he’d punch Tony after a particularly touchy Accords conversation got too heated. 

Steve thought it was too nice here. Too nice and too crowded with people who didn’t bother to look anyone in the eye. He usually looked at the ground anyway. It’s not like he had any intention of moving to Manhattan, which is where he’d end up if he signed the Accords. That or to the Avengers Compound, and LA was worse. He’d barely convinced himself to move back to Brooklyn because of how snooty it had gotten in the seventy odd years he’d been absent. 

“He’s gone too far this time!” Steve snapped, but Natasha didn’t flinch. “He shouldn’t have agreed to any form of conference before we, as Avengers, came to a consensus. But not only did he go behind our backs and call Secretary Ross, he helped arrange the goddamn UN meeting!” 

“You weren’t there for the meeting Tuesday. We were planning to go over it then.” Natasha stated, glancing sideways at him, “And you seemed to have misplaced your phone, so now one could reach you.” 

Steve jolted slightly and spilled some coffee on his hand. He brought it to his mouth to suck off the sting, hoping to look as casual as possible. Natasha looked unimpressed. 

“Something came up.” He took another swig of his coffee, “But none the less, he shouldn’t have made this decision himself. And you heard him, Nat! ‘There’s no decision-making process’? From day one he’s wanted it his way. He wasn’t going to listen to the rest of us!” 

“Think about where he’s coming from Steve.” Natasha placated. 

“Oh, I’ve thought about it. All I’ve done is think about it. Now, I’m done thinking about it.” Steve chugged the rest of his coffee, wiping his lips and hoping the burns in his mouth would heal in minutes, “Does he honestly think we all haven’t felt guilty over a mission that went wrong? Or that civilians got hurt? He isn’t. And I’m not about to shift the blame for my actions just because I don’t always like the outcome.” 

“I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to do, Steve.” Natasha’s voiced hardened only slightly, giving the slightest hint that she was frustrated. “And if we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer.” 

Steve stopped, empty coffee cup caving in his tight grip. He turned on the heel of his foot very slowly, eyes narrowed as he looked at Natasha, “You wouldn’t be agreeing with them, would you?” 

“I’m just weighing out the options.” She said calmly to not poke the very strong and very angry bear. 

“I can’t believe you.” Steve seethed, speaking through his teeth. He threw his coffee in the trash so hard it shook the entire bin. “If this gets passed, none of us will have any say in what the Avengers do. There is no one hand on the wheel; the government will take control of the whole fucking car! And even if they don’t, we’ll have-”

“We can’t talk about this out here.” Natasha hissed, voice finally firm. She looked around at the crowded sidewalks, civilians maneuvering past, too close for comfort. “Let’s go back to your apartment and discuss it there. I’ll even make those fried potato things you like so much.”

She didn’t wait for Steve to respond. She turned towards the road and waved her hand to hail a taxi when Steve finally came to his senses and grabbed her arm. “No!” He said, voice panicked. 

Natasha twisted her arm out of his grip. “No?” She was very calm, which was never good. 

“My uh, my apartment is really dirty.” Steve said, rubbing his neck and nervously watching traffic slug past instead of looking at Natasha “I haven’t had a chance to clean it all week. And I haven’t washed my dishes anyway, so you couldn’t, you know, uh cook.” 

Natasha gave him a long, calculated stare, tilting her head to the side. 

“Careful, Steve.” she said slowly, “Someone might think you’re hiding something in there.” 

When Steve made it back to his apartment, body heavy but this time not with physical fatigue, the first thing he saw was Bucky laying on his stomach, rubbing his hand underneath the couch, swiping back and forth to search for…something. He peered over his shoulder towards Steve, quickly looked him up and down, and turned back to the couch. It was the only acknowledgment he gave Steve for the rest of the night. 

***

Bucky searched through the entirety of Steve’s apartment; under every piece of furniture, every speck on his shelves, every cabinet, every high corner in the walls covered with cobwebs (little asshole really needed to learn how to dust) and in every grain of the apartment. 

He found one microscopic microphone glued underneath Steve’s couch. He squashed it between his fingers like a bug. 

***

They ate dinner together every night even if Steve had to rush out of Avengers tower hours before he should to make it home before Bucky got hungry. 

Sometimes Steve would tell stories of the past or his work day, sometimes the only noise was the scraping of forks and chewing of take out. But they always ate together, and Bucky never spoke. 

It had gotten to the point where Steve began to wonder if this was working at all. Bucky gave no indication that he remembered anything, even small facts like their home room teacher’s name or the game of jacks they’d play in the school yard that always got them in trouble. He hadn’t even told Steve what happened in his dreams. 

Which was fine. He would tell him when he was ready. Steve would never push. Wouldn’t even think of it. But maybe a piece of him wanted to know what Bucky remembered. He had a right to know, for Christ’s sake, it was practically his memories, too. At least if it was about – 

“I feel like there was something I wanted to tell you.” Bucky mumbled, silently scooping up his peas. He never made a noise while he was eating. 

Steve stopped his loud chewing, mouth frozen with mashed food. He swallowed before responding, “Tell me what?” 

Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together, staring at his peas and chicken. He was silent for a long while until, “I don’t remember. Maybe I already told you.” His eyes slowly looked up towards Steve, “Maybe I didn’t even mean it.” 

The words punched any out from Steve like a blow to the gut. How the hell was he supposed to respond to that? 

Bucky used to make a point of dancing around or completely shutting down serious topics back in the day, but Steve didn’t know what to expect from this Bucky. 

Maybe he wasn’t avoiding. Maybe really didn’t know. Maybe he was waiting for Steve to explain. 

He was still staring at Steve, peas in his spoon hovering over his plate and didn’t bring it to his mouth until Steve started eating again. 

They didn’t talk about it. Both too stubborn or too confused or too raw to continue. 

***

Bucky hadn’t dreamed for four nights when he dragged the couch into Steve’s room at two in the morning. 

He couldn’t remember when he couldn’t dream, and Steve’s stories weren’t helping as much as Steve hoped. Flashes of memories buzzed in his brain like bees, but words didn’t match their lips and the second things started to make sense, they’d all smoosh together again and leave Bucky in a confused haze of ‘what really happened?’. 

He figured if he couldn’t dream of Steve, being near him was the next best thing. 

It took him hours to fall asleep because Steve was a damn loud snorer and when he finally did drift off it was awful fitful. And his sleep was empty, so maneuvering a couch through a thin doorway at a god-forsaken hour of the morning had been for nothing. 

He woke up to sun light shooting right into his eyes, his sheets kicked and twisted around his ankles, and Steve’s bed perfectly made. Military corners and everything. 

He shot up and stumbled out of the bedroom, hair a mess and tangled in front of his eyes. 

Steve stiffly sat at the kitchen table shoveling spoons of cereal into his mouth. As soon as he saw Bucky, he swallowed his mouthful without chewing. 

“You can leave the couch in the living room.” Steve said, voice high and thin. 

Bucky pushed his hair out of his face, making himself stand straighter and controlling his face back to a blank stare. “Sorry, I should’ve asked before I went in your room. Won’t happen again.” 

Steve’s eyes went wide, and he dropped his spoon back into the bowl. He waved his hand quickly as if to completely erase what he just said. 

“No! No, that’s not what I meant at all!” Steve blurted, voice so loud and shaky it bounced off the thin walls. His chest rose with a deep inhale before he tried again, “What I meant was, there’s plenty of room for both of us on the bed.” 

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, mouth set in tight line as he watched Steve, calculated what his next move may be. 

Sharing a bed seemed to be something familiar, but too intimate. Maybe not. But Steve could be implying anything. Bucky wouldn’t know. He doesn’t seem to know anything these days. 

Steve’s face flushed bright red when he realized his next slip up, “I’m really messing this all up, aren’t I?” He chuckled humorlessly, “I mean kinda like how we did in Brooklyn. Never had money for two beds.” 

Bucky didn’t respond right away, and his face didn’t change. Steve grabbed his spoon and ducked his attention on his soggy cereal, swirling little cheerios around his bowl with immense focus. 

“Okay.” 

Steve’s head jerked up, “Okay?” 

Bucky shrugged, then walked to the kitchen to get a glass of water. While he was reaching in the cabinet for a glass he said, “Yeah. If it wasn’t a problem then, it shouldn’t be one now,” He looked over his shoulder towards Steve, “Right?” 

Steve nodded for too long and too fast, “Right. Not a problem at all.” 

But they, for perhaps not the same reason since Steve remembered things that Bucky couldn’t, knew that wasn’t true. 

***

It was only a few days after Bucky started sleeping in Steve’s bed when Steve found the journal. 

Bucky still hadn’t been sleeping much. At least he was talking during dinner, but his constant turning and tossing and staring and gun polishing was starting to effect Steve’s sleep as well. And that lack of sleep seemed to cause a misplace of his (new) government issued phone. 

Bucky was in the living room, staring at the news with the T.V. muted. He tended to sit like that for hours. He didn’t move, and Steve caught himself staring at his chest to make sure he was breathing. 

While Bucky was distracted (though he never truly was. He always seemed to be watching, knowing what Steve was doing even in another room), Steve searched their room. He didn’t need his phone to get crushed like the last one. People at the tower were already suspicious. 

He was on his hands and knees, digging around under his bed, sneezing at the abundance of dust bunnies. He really needed to vacuum. Bucky had an obsession with dusting, so the top counters and flat surfaces were all but immaculate. 

“Shit.” He muttered, coming up empty handed. The only thing besides dust was a gum wrapper and some loose change that was about worthless these days. 

He moved over to the nightstand, dragging himself over on his knees. He peered down underneath, squinting his eyes through the dark and tiny space and fitting his hand underneath. He moved it along the carpet, then to the panels stuck around the wooden legs to support the structure. He only felt grainy dust until his fingers hit something hard. 

“Aha,” He smiled, grabbing the object and pulling it out only it wasn’t his phone. Instead in his hands was a thin leaver back journal with different colored tabs sticking from the sides. He peered over his shoulder towards the living room where Bucky still sat facing the T.V., bright lights flickering and coloring his emotionless face. 

Steve turned back to the journal, took a deep breath and flipped it open. The first page he landed on had his picture, one cut from a magazine of him adorning his uniform. He fingered through the pages, seeing various cut out articles about Steve, The Winter Soldier, The Accords, and Hydra. Next to the pictures laid Bucky’s famous chicken scratch. 

_Who cares if it ain’t legible? As long as you, my ma and God himself can understand it then it don’t matter._

Steve didn’t pride himself in being nosy, in fact he often thought himself the opposite, but in that moment, he couldn’t help but read. If Bucky wouldn’t let on what he knew, Steve was gonna have to try somewhere else. 

There was a lot more crossed out than written and the things written were short. Bucky shouldn’t mind too much if he were to find out Steve snooped. 

There was a bullet list that seemed the best place to start. 

_Steve and I shared apartment 236._

_I worked with a shipping company. I made a point of showing off._

_Steve used to draw._

_Howard Stark made a flying car. I was on a terrible date. Steve was angry. I joined [blacked out] I enlisted [blacked out] I was in the army._

_I think that maybe I said [blacked out] he seemed to be upset that [blacked out]_

_I was 32557. They put syrup in me and it hurt._

_I ripped out [blacked out]_

_I kil[blacked out]_

_Steve cared for me. I think I d[blacked out]_

_Why did I [blacked out]_

_Maybe I [blacked out]_

_‘Til the end of the line?_

He read until he felt the sharp prickling sensation of being watched. Steve looked back towards the living room, but Bucky was still staring at the T.V. He tucked the journal back under the nightstand. 

Bucky knew a lot more than he was leading on, and Steve was going to make it his mission to get him to confess it himself because God help him, he wasn’t going to relive – 

That didn’t matter now. 

Bucky just needed some gentle prodding to spill. And Steve knew just how to do it. 

***

Bucky’s skin began to crawl the second week he was in the apartment, like little ants borrowing into his flesh. He wanted to get out, away from the stale air of the apartment that was so high he couldn’t even open the sealed windows. 

He never stayed in the same place for long with Hydra. They tossed him from one location to another, bought by the Soviets and taken back by the Nazis. And if he wasn’t moving, he was frozen and asleep. 

He had the hardest time sleeping in Steve’s bed, though it was better than the couch and Romania. They slept back to back, and they never touched, but it was nice to hear him breathing. Almost like a lullaby. 

He still wanted to be put down, put out of commission, locked in a storage room or placed on the highest shelf. 

At least he remembered to eat most days, even if it was just those dinners with Steve. But there was still something missing, something that wasn’t clicking, something that made his skin buzz and mind feel heavy with pressure and empty memories or commands in Russian. He wanted to jump out the window except he couldn’t fucking open it. 

So instead he cleaned. Washed clean dishes, scrubbed the shower after every use, obsessively folded and unfolded and refolded laundry. He was dusting the mantel in the living room, third time that day, making sure he hadn’t missed any bugs planted in the apartment or that no new ones were put. 

Steve sat on the couch in front of him, (it was the only time they were in a room together for an extended period when they weren’t pretending to eat or sleep) elbows digging into his knees and chin resting in his hands. He pretended to be reading over a debrief, unfocused eyes glossed over the tiny text. Suddenly, like he just had an epiphany, he blinked and the gloss was gone. He sat up and looked at Bucky. 

“Hey, Buck. Remember when you took me to Coney Island?” 

Bucky barely repressed a groan, eyes closed when he took a deep inhale and paused his dusting. He was not in the mood for another one of Steve’s stories. Especially if it was one he didn’t remember. 

“No.” Bucky said, voice sharp and gruff. He began scrubbing the mantel again with immense concentration, almost too hard and splinted some corners. 

Steve laughed, a short bark, shaking his head and pushing the paperwork aside. “You’d won six bucks from a scratch card. You were so excited. You almost took Dorothy Harris, but she got the stomach flu, so you were stuck with me. Not like I was much better, I puked up after you made me ride the cyclone.” 

“You wanted to ride the cyclone.” Bucky scoffed, then stopped. His whole body froze up. 

Some pieces came back to him like strobe lights. The pink sky, the awful smell of fried batter, the barks of venders and cheers game players, Steve’s dewy skin in the hot sun. 

Steve’s mouth twitched something awful, barely concealing a smile. He wiped at his lips like that would help cover it and coughed. “Deny it all you want, Barnes, but you made me go on it.” 

Bucky shook his head, curling and uncurling his hand to stop it from shaking before he picked up the dust rag again. “Sure, whatever you say, punk.” 

This time, Steve did smile. He grabbed the papers again and resumed his act of reading. “You know, if we did something like that today, people might think – might say…” 

He trailed off. Bucky looked over his shoulder, eyebrows deeply set and mouth in a firm line, “Might say what?” 

Steve’s heartbeat was almost as loud as his words, but he shrugged real casual, “Might say it was a date.” 

Bucky’s lips turned downward into a frown, lines pinched between his brows, “And why might they say that?” 

“Eh, who knows?” Steve laughed, dry and forced through a thick throat, “Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” 

The words knocked something loose in Bucky’s brain, an image of the two of them by a tent at war ghosting around his eyes. There were some dreams that weren’t just dreams, Bucky knew that, but it was different to have it confirmed. 

He shook his head, grabbing the rag and stomping out of the room, “Guess not.” 

He slammed the bathroom door, turned on the shower and almost stepped in fully clothed. His right shoe got soaked before he realized he was supposed to take them off first. He growled, twisting the shower knob so harshly it broke right off. The water stopped but the handle was in Bucky’s hand, bent beyond repair. 

He wanted to throw it, chuck it against the wall and break the tiles or maybe open the door and aim it at Steve’s skull. But he didn’t. He sat down on the bathroom floor, held it in his hand like a baby bird and cried. 

***

At sunset, the sky was about as pink as Steve’s face in the sun. Sharp salt water air stung Bucky’s cheeks as they walked down the peer. Distant squeals of children came from the beach below and those of teens from the coasters far above their heads. 

Steve shoveled handfuls of pale blue cotton candy into his mouth, past complaints about the stickiness it left on his hands and how it melted to soft syrup the second it touched his tongue forgotten. 

“How about the bumper cars, Stevie?” Bucky asked, skirting around a group of youngsters that nearly plowed him and Steve over in their excitement. 

“No, not those.” Steve said, nose wrinkled like he was offended Bucky asked, “The cyclone line is only ten minutes.” 

“The cyclone?” Bucky whistled, shaking his head. “After all that candy you just had, I don’t think that’s such a bright idea.” 

Steve tilted his head up towards Bucky, trying to make up for the five-inch difference between them. “What about it? I can hold it down.” 

Bucky laughed, smile so wide it stretched the corners of his lips ‘til they felt like they’d split. “Alright, Rogers. But when you puke all over Coney Island, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

“Well, what do you wanna go on, smart ass?” Steve snapped, shoving the cotton candy towards Bucky for him to take. 

Bucky wanted to go on the Ferris wheel, but Steve would pitch a fit if he suggested. 

That’s for couples, you lug, they wouldn’t even let us on. 

He wanted to ride it to the top and sit where they could see the bright glow of all New York, but no one could see them and then maybe he’d – 

Maybe then – 

Maybe he’d just lean forward – 

Were Stevie’s lips as sticky as the candy? Were they as sweet? 

They’d never kissed. Sometimes Steve looked like he wanted to in those dark nights when they got too friendly, hands pressing where they shouldn’t, and Steve would look up with those big eyes and mouth ghosting above Bucky’s and he’d lean in real close. Bucky would pull away and laugh, finishing up Steve in a hurry before rolling over and wishing goodnight. 

Didn’t mean he didn’t want to. He just – 

Ash fell around them and tickled his nose. He moved to tuck his nose into the crook of his elbow and sneeze, but the explosions stopped him. 

They burst around them like fireworks only there wasn’t any color except red and a lot of dust. Herds of people shrieked around them, knocking their shoulders and jostling them around as they rushed to get off the pier. 

He turned around to find Steve, but he wasn’t there. There was just swarms and swarms of people bumping and pushing and shoving him and he couldn’t find Steve and he couldn’t move. 

“Steve?!” He wanted to scream, but something was locked over his mouth like a muzzle. A black mask, thick and tight and made his face hot and damp when he breathed. 

He felt a ring around his fingers, a large one from a grenade. Another explosion went off behind him. More screams. Some thumping and chunks flying but he didn’t see what the chunks were made of because he remembered that they never went on the Ferris wheel. 

A siren blasted through the park sounding like the straps against his head as they warmed up the chair and Steve’s alarm. 

Bucky shot up, breathing gulps of air like a fish out of water. The sheets felt tacky with sweat and too tight. 

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to wake you,” Steve’s voice was frantic, even when laced with sleep. He stumbled, hitting the alarm a few times before it finally turned off. 

Bucky thumped back against the pillow, hands covering his face as he tried to right his breathing. 

***

Steve watched the seconds on the digital clock hanging on the conference wall click, waiting for it to round six o’clock. 

Sam and Natasha sat across him, typing at various speeds (Natasha swiftly, Sam at irregular bursts of frantic typing or none at all) the rundown of their meeting with Maria Hill. Tony sat at the head of the table, checking over files and highlighting key points of the Accords to go over before the signing at the UN.

Steve’s copy was laid out in front of him, ignored and pristine, still on the first page. 

He still hadn’t told them his decision, he didn’t really know what his decision was. While he was very much leaning towards no, there were certain rules he wasn’t completely opposed to. It would just take a lot of modifying and prodding to get him to truly agree to it. 

His eyes gazed back over to the clock.

_5:59:56_

_5:59:57_

_5:59:58_

_5:59:59_

Steve shot up like a he sat on a tac, shoving his papers into his too nice leather bag (unethical really, thanks for the present SHIELD), so hurried that they crumbled up on their way in. 

“Got a hot date, Cap?” Tony asked, not looking up from his papers, “Because if memory serves correctly, we’re supposed to go over this today.” 

“We’ve been over it.” Steve said, voice tight and stern, “And I’ve put in my eight hours.” 

Tony scoffs, leaning back in his rolling chair, swaying the seat back and forth, “What do you think this is, a 9-5 job? I put in at least twelve hours a day and you don’t see me packing up.” 

“That’s funny, with the money you have you don’t exactly need to do that,” Steve retorted, crossing his arms, “It’s almost like you’re making a choice.” 

Natasha and Sam stopped their typing, eyes bouncing back and forth like spectators at a tennis match. They waited for the fight that was bound to break out, like a kettle about to scream. 

Tony rolled his eyes to the ceiling, let out a long exhale and pressed his fingers to the space between his eyebrows, “Alright. You want to have this conversation again? Fine.” He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table. 

Steve sighed, uncrossing his arms and tossing his bag back onto his seat. Dinner was going to have to wait. Hopefully Bucky wasn’t hungry. 

“I don’t mean to make things difficult.” Steve mollified.

“You sure about that? Because you’re doing a terrible job at it.” Tony barked back. 

“Tony, if I see a situation pointed south, I can’t ignore it. If we sign these papers, there’s gonna be a lot the government will make us ignore.” 

“Amen to that.” Sam said, raising a fist for Steve to bump but quickly lowering it when catching Tony’s pointed glare. “I mean, it’s not that I completely agree with the cap. It’s just that he’s got a point.” 

Natasha rolled her eyes and went back to typing. 

Tony pressed harder against his forehead, trying to ease the relentless throbbing constantly caused by his teammates. 

“Steve,” He said through gritted teeth, “If you actually took the time to read the papers you so desperately try to ignore, you would see that you’re spewing horseshit.” He dropped his hand to his lap, “It’s not about keeping us from fighting. It’s about being safe. And it’s not like this thing is set in stone anyway. We can make amendments.” 

Steve paused, raising an eyebrow and looking at Tony critically, “What kind of amendments?” 

Tony waved his hand, “Eh, you know, safe guards and such. Getting Wanda reinstated is probably the biggest.” 

Steve, Natasha and Sam all turned to Tony puzzled. 

Steve shook his head, trying to clear up his fogged-up brain, “Wanda? What about Wanda?” 

“She’s fine. She’s currently confined to the compound.” Tony shrugged as if it were no big deal. 

If Wanda’s getting locked away, what the hell would they do to Bucky? Kick him out of the country? Lock him in some cellar? Euthanize him? 

No. No, Steve wasn’t about to let that happen. He wouldn’t – 

He couldn’t lose Bucky again, even the shattered, glued-back-together-wrong Bucky. Not when he just got him back. 

“Say hi to Ross for me.” Steve quipped, throwing the back over his shoulder and storming out of the room, knocking shoulders with the skinny, young secretary bringing in extra file folders. He didn’t turn around to say sorry. 

He had the full intention of marching through the hallway, down the stairs and out the door when a small, firm hand grasped his arm and pulled him into a vacant room. 

“What the fuck, Natasha?” Steve hissed. He was always pissed when he used her full name. 

She pulled the door closed and looked around to make sure it was truly empty. Once she insured the space was clear, she spoke. 

“There was a microphone hidden in your house that doesn’t work anymore.” Her voice was very calm, but her lip twitched like she wanted to chew on it. 

Steve reared back, blinking with mouth open. It seemed as though everyone was trying to make Steve lose his mind. “What?” 

“They planted it when you first moved in. After DC, they were afraid you’d do something reckless…” She took a deep breath, as if the pause would help Steve absorb the information before she delivered the next, “They might go and check. If you are hiding anything, I’d be sure to get rid of it.”

“Is that a threat?” Steve hissed.

“It’s advice.” Natasha bit back, holding her ground, “some that you’d be an idiot not to listen to.” 

Steve Rogers was never praised for being a genius. 

***

Bucky and Steve watched the Accords get signed from their T.V. 

“Weren’t you supposed to be there?” Bucky asked. 

Steve’ phone was silenced in the next room, blocking the stream of texts from Natasha and Tony demanding to know where he was. 

“Too late now.” 

***  
_**Message From: Stark**_

_**Thanks for making us look like a bunch of assholes cap. They go into effect next Thursday.** _

***

It’s been two weeks since Bucky started living with Steve and, in that time, he realized he felt a little more like a human and less like a machine. 

It was still a battle, one he lost every day when he found himself staring at walls or thumbing his knives (he always kept three in his pockets), but there were times, though rare, where he saw Steve smile and he didn’t have to think about smiling back. 

Steve pouted the whole day after the Accords, disappearing into the bathroom where Bucky knew he was on his phone. Just like he knew Steve had seen his journal. He wasn’t an idiot, but he wasn’t about to make a fuss about it now matter how much it made him want to ring the little fucker’s neck until – 

Stop. 

That was what the old Bucky would do. Not the old, old Bucky but the Bucky from the bridge and this Bucky was just going to smile and say that’s okay Stevie. No harm, no foul. 

Because that’s what people do. And he felt like a person now. 

Sometimes. If he reached far enough. 

Steve sulked by Bucky wiping the kitchen counters to get to the fridge. 

“Hey, why the long face?” Bucky asked, scrubbing at a stained spot on the tile that wouldn’t come out. 

“Tony Stark is an asshole.” Steve growled, grabbing a bottle of orange juice and made like he was going to down the whole thing, but just took a sip, sighed and put it back. “He’s making it seem like I single handedly took apart the Avengers. Which is…” Steve moved his hand like he could just grab the right word from midair, then slammed the fridge door shut when he found it, “bullshit!” 

The slam rung off the walls, creating a hum throughout the room and in the space between Bucky and Steve. Steve stared at the shaking fridge, Bucky at the still counter. 

“I just wish I could forget it.” Steve mumbled. 

“Uh,” Bucky cleared his throat, “We could watch a movie or something?” 

The thought of sitting still for hours to stare at some screen made Bucky sick but he’d do it just to see Steve smile, even if it was a tight, fake, little thing. Seeing Steve smile always made something spark in him. Maybe not spark, but flicker. Like when you blow on a dying flame and it breathes big again for a second before dying out. 

Steve’s lips pursed, shyly turning over to face Bucky, “We could?” 

Bucky shrugged, “Why not? Couldn’t hurt.” 

Steve smiled, rushing over to the television, nearly tipping over the table when he stumbled grabbing the remote. 

“They were supposed to play Casablanca at noon,” Steve called, flicking through the channels, “Can’t remember the channel for the life of me. This thing is too damn complicated.” He mumbled to the remote, scratching his head. “Remember watching Casablanca at the Grand? You fell asleep halfway through and only woke up to get more popcorn.” 

Bucky didn’t. He remembered the movie, pieces like loud airplanes and gambling and war. He also remembered that he couldn’t stand it. 

Steve looked over at him and gave that tight smile that Bucky knew meant he was sad but didn’t want to show it, “That’s fine. I don’t remember it much, either. No better time to remember than the present, right?” 

He found the channel and waved Bucky over, plopping down on the couch and scooting over to make room. 

They sat close together, shoulders nearly touching like a string was tied between them that kept them from getting too far apart. The T.V. was up turned loud so neither of them would fall asleep. It was more boring than Steve remembered, but exactly as much as Bucky did. 

Bucky watched Steve from the corner of his eye; saw every little tick, shift, and twist. 

He laughed when Steve did. Cringed when Steve would. Held his breath during the serious parts when Steve got real quiet. 

Steve began nodding off towards the end, resting his head against Bucky’s shoulder with a groggy, “This okay?” 

Bucky nodded quickly, face still looking at the T.V. even though he wasn’t watching. This was more than okay. This was nice. This was warm. 

If Bucky keeps this up, maybe he could feel like a person all the time. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to think about it. 

Steve side was warm where it was pressed against him, his snores tickling the hairs on Bucky’s neck. Bucky wrapped an arm around his shoulder, so delicate he almost wasn’t touching him. 

Bucky didn’t like sitting still. There was always something to be done and always someone watching, but it was worth it to see Steve happy even if he feels hollow. 

Maybe not so hollow anymore. 

Maybe a little warm. 

***

An apartment three floors up and two doors down had antique furniture from the mother land and nicks on the wall to show how tall the children got. 

It was freezing when Bucky stepped inside but his mother was sweating over the stove. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows as she mixed a pot of stew. Family recipe. Can’t share that with anyone. 

His little sister sat on the kitchen counter, skinny chicken legs swinging, and chin rested on her hand as she watched Steve write her grammar homework. 

He was always better at English than Bucky. He was better at everything than Bucky besides breathing and keeping quiet. 

“Rebecca, you’re never gonna get better at it if you let poor Steve do your homework all the time.” Ma scolded halfheartedly, never looking up from her stew. 

Bucky fell back against the wall, staring at the scene in front of him. He was seeing strangers, besides Steve, but the pit in his stomach lit up like a furnace. He didn’t remember this place or his mother’s face but there she was in the kitchen in the apartment he grew up in.

The thump caught ma’s attention and her head shot up quick like it would when she knew Bucky and Rebecca were getting into trouble. 

“James, come in, honey. Steve’s been waiting here for an hour and I’m sure he didn’t come to help your sister with her homework.” Ma said, sending Rebecca a pointed look. 

Rebecca rolled her eyes and hoped off the counter, snatching her paper back from Steve with a grumbled, “Thanks.” before moving to the kitchen table. 

Ma snapped a finger at Bucky, “And close your mouth. You’ll catch flies.” 

Bucky trudged forward like he was moving through thick mud, eyes wide and combing over the apartment. He didn’t remember this place. He couldn’t bring himself to close his mouth. 

“It’s alright, Mrs. Barnes. I like visiting.” Steve turned to Bucky with a smirk, “Buck’s a grouch after work, anyway.” 

Bucky made it to the kitchen, grasping his hands against the counter and leaning over like he was going to vomit. He stared at the brown grout around the tiles knowing he spent last night scrubbing at it, but he couldn’t remember doing it. 

“Ask Steve how he’s been,” Ma bossed Bucky with a wave of her ladle, “You’ve been sick, haven’t you Steve? You look all flushed.” 

Steve’s smile shrunk, eyes got serious and he lifted his chin high, “I’ve been fine, thank you.” 

He hadn’t been. He just got off the brink after a bad case of pneumonia. 

Suddenly, Bucky felt a firm, cold hand press against his forehead. His ma looked at his face, eyebrows smooshed together, and lips set firm. She worried too much. 

“You alright, Jamie?” She asked, smoothing the hair out of his face, “You look sick as a dog.” 

“Yeah, Buck, you been working too hard?” Steve asked, voice light, “I told you to quit showing off. You look about ready to drop dead.” He never got nervous when Bucky was sick. 

He once said it’s because Bucky let his ma baby him before it could get anywhere too serious. 

“Rebecca, go help your brother to the bathroom before he gets sick all over my kitchen.” Ma barked, one hand on her hip the other loosely stirring the stew. 

Rebecca sighed and got up, upset by the inconvenience and being made to move again. She looked down and stopped, face paled and looking about as sick as Bucky felt, “Hey Bucky, you got blood all over your shoes.”

“James Buchanan, on my good carpet?” Ma scolded, voice high and stern. 

He pushed himself back from the counter, holding on to keep his balance and looked at his feet. His shoes and pant legs up to his calves were sopped in blood. 

“Buck?” Steve’s voice was careful and quiet. He leaned over the counter close to Bucky but only looked at his face. 

_“Kill them, soldat!”_ Voice so sharp and close to his ear it shook the hair on his neck and cheek. 

He swallowed a gasp and shoved himself away from the counter, arms now by his sides. 

Everyone in the room was watching him, eyes like bugs, mouths closed and faces white. He kept walking backwards and stumbled over a chair. 

_Shoot them!_

His trigger finger was buzzing and there was a weight in his hand almost like…

Too much like…

Feels a lot like…. 

He wanted to scream. _Don’t you dare make me kill my ma. Don’t you fucking dare._

He didn’t scream. He shot his mother in the face. 

Her brains splattered the back wall, and some got into the stew, mixed in with the beef. Her stiff corpse knocked over the pot on her way down.

***

_The machine has birthed the mind you wanted, though it was never yours to tame._

***

He’d been awake for an hour and the shot was still loud in his ears. His mother’s blood filled his eyes and he couldn’t blink it away, so he squeezed them shut. 

It felt real. It was real. It wasn’t. He didn’t know, but that blood…

He’d seen it before. 

Breathing in the shallow place between his knees didn’t stop the curdling in his stomach and his hair laced between his fingers tight. He was ripping it out but couldn’t even feel the sharp tugs. 

He didn’t want Steve to find him like this; in fetal position on the living room floor, not knowing whether to scream or choke after he filled his mouth with his own blood. But he couldn’t stand up. 

He had stumbled out here when he woke up, aiming to smash the window and jump out of it when he collapsed. 

A hand pressed against his back, heavy and calloused like those who’d pick and prod at his skin and say,

_Wipe him and start over._

_Mission report._

_Put him on ice._

_Beat him, but don’t kill him. Make it close. Just to the edge._

“Bucky?” 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” He yelled, ripping out of Steve’s grip and standing like a caged animal set lose. He paced, face pointed towards the ground, but a finger pointed towards Steve, stomping as he seethed, “Don’t you fucking touch me. Don’t you ever touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me.” 

Steve pressed his back against the wall, hands lifted to show he wasn’t going to move without Bucky knowing. His breathing was quick through his nose but wasn’t as loud as Bucky who hyperventilated loud enough to wake the neighbors. 

“Bucky,” Steve’s voice was shaky, chest heaving like he was an asthmatic again, “breath.” 

“No!” Bucky bellowed, rage scraped his veins so deep he was trembling, “No, you don’t get to tell me what to do. You have no idea what is going on inside my head!” He grabbed his hair, tearing at it again, “Every time I think I’m getting better I get so. Much. Worse.” 

He reached for the first thing he could grab, the remote resting on the coffee table, and chucked it at the T.V., exploding the screen so the pieces shattered everywhere, shards of glass sticking up between threads in the carpet. While it fed the beast, it didn’t satisfy. 

“Please,” Steve begged, voice tight. His eyes burned so he blinked. He didn’t move from the wall or put his hands down, “Bucky, please calm down.” 

“I wish there was never a war,” Bucky croaked, shaking his head and walking right over the glass with bare feet. He trailed blood on the ground but didn’t notice, “If there wasn’t a war, we would’ve been fine, and I could’ve died that nice Bucky Barnes and you that good Steve Rogers. That Bucky was great because he was with you and you were fine, even skin and bones because you were happy and strong.” 

Steve felt dizzy watching the blood soak the carpet. He wanted to tell Bucky, but the words fell flat in his stomach and he didn’t have the strength to get them out. He leaned further against the wall to keep from falling. 

“I hate him.” Bucky spit, “It’s not fair. That Bucky wasn’t a zombie taking shots at people he knew just so he wouldn’t get beat. I hate him because he’s happy because he doesn’t know!” Bucky looked at Steve, eyes wild with defeat locking with Steve’s red and wet. “And I can’t remember.” 

Bucky moved to the bookshelf and chucked the heaviest towards the window, breaking it open and sending the book hurdling down to the Brooklyn street below. Steve hoped no one was walking underneath. 

Bucky rounded on Steve so fast it looked like he was going to kill him, “What are we, Steve?” 

Everything stopped. Steve’s heart, Bucky’s movements, the clocks on the wall. Steve shook his head, mouth open like a codfish and shoulders tense. 

“What were we?” Bucky continued his pacing, but face locked on Steve’s like he was prey, “Because I can’t figure that out. I keep waking up before the good part and honestly? I think there was no good part. I don’t even know what happened because my brains been fried to fuck!” 

Steve’s legs gave out and he slipped down the wall before thumping to the ground on his rear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Don’t lie to me!” Bucky bellowed, so loud it shook the walls and stung Steve’s eardrums. 

The tears slipped out of his eyes and cut his cheeks as he sat helpless and scared on the ground. He looked at the carpet and cried, head shaking and mumbling, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

Bucky laughed, a humorless, short bark. 

“I won’t – l can’t be that person. I feel so hollow. Did he feel like this Steve? Did your Bucky feel hollow?” Bucky shook his head, answering his own question with a sneer, “No, that nice Bucky Barnes with his nice friend Steve and his nice little family. Couldn’t have been this fucked up. I didn’t remember them Steve.” Bucky confessed, dropping to his knees on the ground. His mouth and eyes were open wide as he limply shook his head, “And god, I think I killed them.”

His face fell into his hands as he sobbed, loud enough to shake the broken glass and his shoulders. Steve’s were quieter, but his face felt hot and tacky with tears and his stomach ripped to shreds once the knots pulled too damn tight. 

The sirens outside bled in with the thump of helicopter blades by their window. Steve sat, empty and torn, and didn’t look out. 

Tony Stark decked in full Iron Man gear walked through their front door like he owned this place, too. “Noise complaint.” He joked, arms crossed and voice muffled through the mask, “You really spooked the neighbors.” 

He glanced towards Bucky curled in a ball crying, for a passing second before turning back to Steve, “I don’t know if you have a death wish, Cap, but you can’t just hoard a fugitive of the state in your apartment.” 

Steve stayed silent, glaring at Tony with tears in his eyes and on his cheeks. He didn’t bother wiping them away. 

Tony sighed, a whole-body thing, before looking down the hallway and waving his hands. A full armored swat team trotted through the door in unison, unthreatening as they quickly surveyed the area, splitting into teams to check each room. 

One bounded up to Steve, offering a hand to help him up. Steve grabbed it. 

“Don’t touch him.” Steve said when he was standing, voice weak and quiet as he pointed to Bucky, “He doesn’t want to be touched.” 

“Don’t worry, Captain.” The agent said, “We were only told to bring you both to the Avengers Compound. They’ll send another group in to pack your belongings.”  
Steve nodded, neck tight and head like lead. 

Another agent, a female, hurried over to Bucky and bent over his curled body, “Sergeant Barnes?” 

“Bucky.” His voice cracked, broken and raw. 

“Bucky. We’re going to get you some help, okay?” Her voice bled in with the sirens and feet stomping though the apartment. He ducked his face deeper towards his knees and held his breath. 

***

_These hollow things push back sleep._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i managed to update right before two weeks? how bout that. 
> 
> i hope you guys have had a great holiday season so far! and if you don't celebrate anything, then i hope it's been a great winter! one more chapter to go! im taking care of my grandpa next week so hopefully i can bust it all out when he's sleeping, but if not, then it might take me a little longer because i go back to school in two weeks omg. 
> 
> thank you for the kudos, comments, and bookmarks! pls let me know what you guys think of this one! any feedback is welcome 
> 
> -emily


	3. Chapter 3

The circled pattern in the carpet swirled and cackled with a squeal like Elizabeth when he pushed inside her. That was the floorboards, always a shrieking cat in the late hours after shifts at the dock. The carpet spun so fast Bucky felt like he was gonna faint. Instead he laughed, bumping against the wall and pushing off only to smack into the other one. 

Maybe he had too much to drink. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone out at all. 

His tongue still tasted like pop’s cheap whiskey, cigarettes and Elizabeth’s lipstick. The longer is sat in his mouth, soaking into his gums, the higher the vomit rose in his esophagus. He needed to brush his teeth. 

He had to get home before morning. Before he puked all over his snazzy uniform. Before Steve would go to bed for the night and not wake until morning when Bucky had to leave. 

He had to tell Steve that – before he gets shipped off, that he – 

But the ground looked like a nice place to rest. And his keys were so deep in his left pocket that no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t feel them. 

He sighed, loud and dramatic, shoving both hands in his pockets and – 

Wait. 

Bucky looked down, lip pursed, then guffawed so loud his head throbbed. His keys were in his right pocket the whole time. 

He shook his head, stumbled down the hall a couple more doors before finally reaching his. He jammed his key into the lock hole, once, twice, three times before he finally got it in. Just like with Elizabeth. He clunked his forehead against the door and chuckled like a dork. Then, he turned the key and pushed his way inside. 

The door fell shut with an echoing bang and perhaps Bucky should’ve been more gentle. He just laughed, looking at the shaky door and falling against the wall. 

“Hey, Stevie!” He called without lowering his volume for the sake of the neighbors or Steve’s need to sleep, “Come out here. I got somethin’ I needta tell you.” 

Stevie ran out frantically, hair tousled, and button-down shirt thrown over his johns. His chest heaved with gasps, overexerted from the quick scrambled out of bed. 

“Bucky?” Steve wheezed, “What the hell? Do you know what time it is?” 

“Steve!” Bucky cheered, grin so wide his teeth hurt, and threw his arms out, “You’re awake!” 

“Of course, I’m awake, you dunce. You’re squawking loud enough to wake the whole block.” Steve hissed, still breathing heavy as he marched towards Bucky and grabbed his arm to try and drag him back to their room. 

“No,” Bucky yanked his arm out of Steve’s grip, swaying off balance as he did. He righted himself before he fell. “No, there’s something I gotta tell you.” 

Steve stared at him and lowered his arm slow. He raised his eyebrow and waited for Bucky to continue. 

“I care too, Stevie.” Bucky confessed, placing a floppy hand on chest, “Right here.” 

Steve froze, mouth open like a dead fish and eyes like dancing fire. Wild fire. He was mad. He was really fucking mad and Bucky was too drunk to care. 

Steve lurched forward and shoved Bucky in the chest so hard Bucky stumbled and smacked the wall again. He was gonna get stuck to the walls if this kept up. 

Steve grabbed Bucky’s lapels tight and dragged him down so they were eye level. His breathing was still fast but not because his lungs couldn’t take it and his eyes were red and veiny. 

“You goddamn son of a bitch. If you mock me one more –” 

“I’m serious!” Bucky whined, offended that the words even came out of Steve’s mouth. “I love you, Stevie. You have to know. You have to know I love you.” 

The red in Steve’s eyes got brighter when the tears slipped out, but the fire never went away. His face was flushed crimson and his forehead was furrowed so bad a vein poked out like a worm. His breath was hot on Bucky’s chin, tickling his five o’clock shadow. 

Bucky’s blood rushed and pumped hot in his ears and his chest felt cold. The silence wiggled its way back between them and Bucky felt like he might drown in it. 

“You know I love you.” He whispered right to Steve’s lips before leaning in to kiss them. 

Steve scrunched his face, twisting his head to the side and shoving Bucky away from him. He scrambled back, eyes wild, with his arm drawn back to sock Bucky in the jaw before scurrying back to their room. He slammed the door so hard the walls looked like they’d never stop shaking. 

Bucky watched the door for a solid minute before he lurched forward and vomited all over the carpet. 

He went off to war the next morning with a bruised jaw and no one to send him off. 

***

Steve signed the Accords on Thursday. 

“There’ll be amendments.” Tony promised. Steve nodded, but the thick dread that sat heavy in his stomach didn’t lessen. 

They moved into the compound Friday morning. Bucky was sent to evaluation that afternoon. “Unstable” the report said. “Unstable but no immediate danger.” 

***

When Steve and Bucky stepped into their apartment, Bucky beelined for the first bedroom, closed the door firmly and locked it. 

Steve sighed and placed his single box of belongings on the kitchen counter, then let the weight of the past days knock his shoulders down as he slumped against the counter. 

***

Bucky didn’t like this place. The temperature was always perfect, the furniture monochromatic, the windows went too high, the land outside for too long, and there was a voice inside the ceiling. 

“I’m here to assist you.” It said with a smooth British tongue. 

Bucky refused to speak to it, so it never spoke. He was very careful with his movements, usually not moving at all. There was someone watching. Someone was always watching.  
He sat on the floor against the wall and stared out the window. 

His safest option was to stay in the room. 

***

Steve knocked on Bucky’s door, three light taps. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, chewing his lip and waiting for the answer he knew wasn’t coming. He hadn’t responded to anything in the three days they’d been at the compound, hadn’t even left his room. 

“Bucky?” Steve called anyway. No response. 

He sighed and gently placed the tray of breakfast food by the door, scooping up the untouched tray full of last night’s dinner. 

He’d try again at lunch and then at dinner. 

***

Bucky came out when he was summoned for therapy, one of the agreements that had been made between Tony and Steve for Bucky to remain on the premises. 

The therapist, Dr. Kafka was stiff backed and stern faced but her voice was rich as hot chocolate and her hands were smooth. 

Bucky kept his shoved in his pockets, back arched while sat in the couch. He stared intently at his feet. 

“You don’t have to talk about it now,” She said, peering over her glasses’ rims pushed too far down her nose, “But it won’t do you much good to sit on it.” 

There was tense silence except for the tick tock of the clock sat on the wall. 

“There’s these dreams,” Bucky confessed, “And I don’t know what’s real and what’s not but if the stuff I don’t wanna be real is…” 

Silence again. Dr. Kafka waited patiently for him to continue. 

Bucky barked a laugh, quick, wet and humorless and leaned back against the couch. He faced the far wall to the left off him, not looking at Dr. Kafka but rather the wide array of books and nick knacks arranged on her shelves. 

There was a tiny ceramic anchor with a rope curled around it like a snake. They were painted blue and splotchy like a child did it. It probably was a kid because who the hell else would paint rope blue? A blue rope wouldn’t stop that anchor from sinking. 

“I think I’d kill myself.” 

She nodded, serious but without judgment. “Then I think the first step is to talk about these dreams and decide what’s real and what isn’t. Then we’ll move on and, if I do my job right, I think you’ll leave these sessions feeling a lot differently about this situation.” 

“Meaning?” 

“Meaning you’ll understand that killing yourself isn’t the solution.” 

There was a stain on the carpet, so faded that it shouldn’t have been noticed. Maybe someone had spilled coffee there and they could never quite mop it up. Or it could’ve been blood. Blood is a bitch to get out, too. 

Dr. Kafka sighed, taking off her glasses and putting them on the table between them. “Steve told me about your journal.” 

Course he did, that nosy no good, punk. Always riffling through Bucky’s belongings when he was at work, snooping around for things he shouldn’t have been.

Or did he? No, no that didn’t seem right. 

“You had the right idea, writing down what you remember. But I got a little assignment for you.” Dr. Kafka said, jotting something down in her slender notebook and tearing it out. 

Bucky blinked, brow furrowed, still staring at the stain. He hadn’t been giving homework since…well, he didn’t know. Grammar school? High school? 

“I want you to keep writing it all down – after what we talked about in your evaluation, I’m assuming these are coming from your dreams?” 

Bucky nodded.

“Okay. I want you to write down everything from these dreams, but don’t cross anything out. And separate things that you believe happened and things you think didn’t. You’ll bring it to our next session on,” She leaned over to look at the calendar tacked to the wall with a sarcastic quote for each month. This month’s was I’m not rude. I just speak what everyone hasn’t got the balls to say. “Thursday? Three days from today.” 

She looked back at Bucky, head tilted like she’d be looking over her glasses’ rims if she still had them on. “Think you can do that?” 

“Sure.” Bucky said on an exhale.

She reached over to pass him the paper with the assignment. He plucked it delicately between two fingers, folded it into equal parts and put it in his pockets. 

“Anything else you wanna talk about today? We got a bit of time left.” 

Bucky cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on his pants. His eyes looked over the nick knacks again. 

“Sometimes with Steve, I…” Bucky took a deep breath, “I don’t really know where we stand.” 

“Stand in terms of friendship or are you talking about something different?” 

Bucky snorted, face scrunched. He kept rubbing his hands. His palms were starting to get hot. 

“Not like friends.” He admitted. He moved one hand to rub at his nose and then dropped it on his lap, stilling both. 

“I think there’s something there, but sometimes I’m not sure. I’m no psychic.” He said. He twisted his lower lip, picked at the skin and then dropped his hand again. Any more fidgeting and he’d be on par with Steve. “And I ain’t good at reading signs.” 

“Do you want to be with Steve?” She asked, blunt as ever. It made Bucky flustered, uncomfortable even. He’d tell her that it’s none of her damn business, but he guessed that’s kind of the point. 

“I mean,” He shifted in his seat, “I think it could be…nice.” 

“You could tell Steve that. Or ask him to be clear about his intentions. Starting a dialogue would be beneficial.” She picked her glasses up off the table and slid them on, “I’m not telling you what to do about your relationship, that’s all on you. But I don’t see any harm in trying,” She raised her hands, “If you want.” 

Sure, they were two men marched through generations, kept alive through textbooks. But while Steve stayed asleep, Bucky bathed himself in blood. Steve wouldn’t want this, he shouldn’t want this. He wanted that nice Bucky Barnes. Bucky now was just a stale idea of him. 

“No, ma’am.” Bucky said, finally turning to look her in the eye, “After the things I’ve done – the thing I was,” He shook his head, then dropped his gaze back to his lap, too heavy to keep it on her, “I don’t think that would benefit him much at all.” 

She nodded, leaned over to rest her elbows on her knees and looked Bucky right in the eyes. “Then why don’t you focus on the person you are trying to be now?” 

***

Steve didn’t have much time to be with Bucky these days. He’d see him sometimes in the kitchen (thank God he was coming out of that stuffy room), and once on the couch at three in the morning staring at a wall. His bed felt cold and to high on one side, but he didn’t want to seem overbearing and offer the vacant half to Bucky. So, he left him be.  
Steve couldn’t stay on their floor much anyway. He had responsibilities; paperwork to fill out, a team to lead, press conferences to report to. Everyone had been so excited he had signed. Everyone except Sam. 

“Man, if I was in your shoes, I would’ve ripped those damn papers and thrown them in their faces.” Sam said when he and Steve were alone in the elevator riding up to the conference room. 

“Sam, you were one of the first to sign.” Steve countered, arms crossed and facing the elevator doors. 

“Yeah, I was.” Sam agreed, “But it’s not like I had much of a say in the matter.” 

So, because everyone and their mother (excluding Sam Wilson) were so damn thrilled that Steve signed his name on some worthless bunch of papers, he had to speak to every news outlet there was to apologize for his “lapse in judgement”. 

And when he wasn’t doing that, training Wanda, speaking with Dr. Kafka or working through so much paperwork he started seeing double, he was in the gym. 

He’d beat through more punching bags than necessary. Tony huffed about how he was going to go break every boxers’ heart after he buys every single punching bag in the world. Steve liked to imagine he was punching Tony. That’s when the chain would snap and send the bag flying. 

Sometimes, he would kill two birds with one stone and spar. This way he was training (himself and whichever fellow teammate had the balls to go one on one) and working out his anger. 

Natasha was always game because Steve didn’t scare her. Hell, nothing ever scared her. Steve once saw her pick up a rabid mouse in a dingy motel room that sent everyone else (him and Clint) shrieking for cover on top of the counters. 

He didn’t even ask her to partner up with him. She just wordless climbed into the ring, squared up and waited for Steve to throw the first punch. 

They fought in silence for thirty minutes, the only noises being the squeaks of the matt and their panting.

“Can you find some documents for me?” Steve asked, ducking from a right hook then kicking in retaliation. Natasha stepped to the side unaffected and kicked Steve’s legs out from under him. 

“Yes.”

He landed on his rump, knocking the wind out of him before Natasha offered her hand. 

“I need Winifred and Rebecca Barnes’ death certificates,” He said as he was pulled to his feet. He brushed off the back of his pants and looked up, meeting Natasha’s squinted and confused eyes. “it’s for a friend.” 

She scoffed, stepping back to square up once again. 

“Well, when you give them to Bucky, tell him I say hi.” She joked then cracked Steve in the jaw. 

***

Steve stumbled into the dark kitchen at one in the morning, groggy, rubbing his eyes and heaving a loud yawn. He woke up parched beyond ignoring and reluctantly got up for a glass of water. 

He palmed the wall for the light switch when a heavy and hot hand smacked on top of his. He gasped and fumbled back, scared wide awake. 

“Keep them off.” Bucky mumbled, voice scratchy and heavy with exhaustion. He slid his hand off Steve and leaned back against the fridge, tilting his head back and looking at the ceiling. 

“Whatchu doing up?” Steve whispered once he caught his breath. The dark made him worried he’d wake someone even though Bucky and Steve were the only ones on this floor. 

“Dr. Kafka thinks we should talk.” Bucky explained, still looking at the ceiling. 

Steve looked up, too, trying to see if he was looking at something interesting. He wasn’t. The ceiling was the smoothest one Steve ever saw, nothing to look at like the popcorn or tiled ceilings he was used to. 

“Does she?” Steve asked. 

“Yeah.” Bucky looked down, so Steve did, too, “But I think I needa get better first.” 

“When will that be?” Steve wondered, voice still quiet.

Bucky shrugged, shucking his hands in his pockets and looking at his sock clad feet. “She says when I’m happy.” 

“She said that?” 

“She said something like that,” Bucky blinked, darting his eyes around like he was lost, “I don’t remember.” 

And it was quiet again. Sometimes at night it wasn’t so scary when silence came, but Steve didn’t want them to stop talking. So, he waited it out. 

“I don’t really feel anything,” Bucky confessed in a hiss, hands curling to fist the inside fabric of his sweatpants’ pockets, “Sometimes it’s warm, but that’s only with you or when I’m dreaming of you, you know, before it gets all bloody.” 

His eyes turned to Steve’s, clear blue locking with swirled green. 

“I think I loved you.” Bucky breathed, then tilted his head, “But you knew that.” 

Steve swallowed because no, he was not going to cry again so help him God. Not now. 

“You know,” Steve said, “I think that for you to be happy now, maybe you shouldn’t care so much about you in the past. And I’m talking with Hydra, with me,” Steve cleared his throat and rubbed his chin, breaking eye contact to look at the ground, “Maybe we can try talking more? About anything. Can’t imagine it’s good to ignore each other so much.”

Bucky laughed, head falling back against the fridge. Steve started to chuckle, not so much because something was funny but because Bucky was laughing. 

“You’ve been talking with Dr. Kafka too much.” Bucky said, soft laughs still shaking his shoulders. His laughter soon stopped, and he wiped at his left eye. “But yeah, I think that would be – that would be nice.” 

Steve smiled, tight but genuine. He glanced back at Bucky, who was watching Steve from the corner of his eye. 

“Hey, um, I know the nights have been cold, nowhere near New York but,” Steve took a deep breath, “My bed’s open, if you need.” 

Bucky nodded, all trace of laughter gone. Steve nodded, too, turning to duck out of the kitchen and bid Bucky goodnight over his shoulder.

He stopped in the doorway, grabbing onto the corner of the wall. The plaster turned slick from the sweat pooling on his palm and if he hadn’t been gripping it so hard, he would have slipped. He turned his head back towards the kitchen, not looking at Bucky but the counter beside him. 

“I loved you, too.” Steve whispered and then headed to his room. 

***

Bucky climbed into Steve’s bed later that night when he thought he was asleep. It’s a good thing that fat-head was a terrible actor. Steve smiled with his eyes closed the second the bed dipped. 

***

The clock chipped and clicked with each passing second, bouncing off the walls and through the furniture. 

Dr. Kafka and Bucky sat facing each other once again, but neither had said a word passed good morning. Bucky thought that she was waiting for him to speak. That would make sense, after all, these sessions were about him. 

He held the journal tightly in his right hand, reluctant to open it and read the notes he’d jotted inside. Those were personal. He was allowed to have things that were personal.

“I talked to Steve,” Bucky stated, breaking the prolonged silence. 

“Did you?” She perked up, sitting straighter in her chair. “What about?” 

Bucky shrugged, “Nothing much. Just clearing the air.” 

“That’s good.” She encouraged, nodding enthusiastically. “Now, did you finish the assignment I gave you?” 

Bucky stiffed up, looking down at his journal and gripping it tighter. It was bound to crumble up and squish all the papers if he kept it up. Maybe then no one could see it. 

“I’m not asking to read it, Bucky.” Dr. Kafka assured, leaning back in her seat to put more distance between them to show that she wasn’t about to reach out and pluck it from him, “It’s just for you to organize your thoughts. Find a starting point for our discussion.” 

Bucky nodded and took a deep breath. He thumbed through the starchy pages to find where he jotted everything down after there last session. 

“Alright, um,” He muttered, adjusting in his seat, “I fell off a train. That happened.” 

He glanced up at Dr. Kafka, awaited her response. She only nodded with a small smile, encouraging him to go on. 

“And I didn’t, um,” He cleared his throat and brushed his hair out of his face, “I didn’t blow up Coney Island.” He flicked the journal closed and smoothed out the cover with gentle fingers.

“I looked that one up. It’s still there, so,” He shrugged, lips pressed together, “I couldn’t have done anything.” 

“You couldn’t have.” Dr. Kafka agreed, “Keep going.” 

He got through the whole list, the knot in his stomach loosening with every word that slipped past his lips. It felt nice to say them out loud and hear someone agree. Yes, he did go to a convention before he was shipped off. No, he couldn’t have ripped out Steve’s throat. 

Still, there were things he didn’t think he could ever say. Personal things. Raw things. Things that made his eyes burn and throat close just thinking about. He didn’t want to talk about seeing Steve’s face when he tried to kiss him or his mother’s eyes when he shot between them. 

He didn’t want to ask because maybe they really happened. 

***

Bucky was gonna scale the walls if he didn’t get off this floor sometime soon. 

Sure, the compound was equipped with things like a gym, screening room, meditation centers, windows that open. Yet it was a good day if he stepped foot out of his room for something besides therapy. 

“We need to find you a hobby,” Dr. Kafka stated. 

His new assignment was to get off his floor, even if it was just for a ride on the elevator or to throw the garbage through a different shoot. 

Steve pestered him into going to the gym for a training session. Bucky denied at first, but Steve kept insisting and pleading and groveling that eventually Bucky threw in the towel. 

“You’ll like the team.” Steve assured, bouncing on the balls of his feet as the elevator sunk down to the lowest level. 

Bucky didn’t respond. He was too busy focusing on his breathing and heart rate. 

The chime of the elevator rang like a gunshot and Bucky couldn’t unglue himself from the back wall when the doors opened. 

“The gym, Captain Rogers.” The ceiling voice stated. 

“Thank you, Jarvis.” Steve stepped out, walking with a pip in his step towards his teammates. 

So, Steve talked to robots now. Fancy that. At least someone else heard the voice, too. 

There was a girl sitting in the corner, bright red lights streaming through her finger tips. Steve’s friend Sam sat with his arm around a woman who almost looked like someone Bucky knew. He couldn’t remember who, but her face was more familiar than most things were since he started dreaming. Tony Stark, the genius who dragged them here, was typing frantically on his phone, unaware that Steve and Bucky had walked in. 

“Hey everyone,” Steve called, immediately gripping the attention of the room. Except for Tony, he was still on his phone but ticked his chin up to mock listening, “I know you all kinda know of him, but I wanted to formally introduce you to my friend.” 

He grinned over his shoulder and waved Bucky over. Now, everyone was staring at him, even Tony, waiting for him to move. 

Bucky let out a shaky breath and pushed himself through the door just before it slid closed. He stood right beside it, shoulders to his ears and face set firm. 

Steve walked over to him, clapping him once on the shoulder which made Bucky flinch something violent. 

“This is Bucky,” Steve said, then turned towards the rest, “Bucky, this is Wanda, Sam, Natasha and Tony.” 

Sam smiled, rubbing Natasha on the shoulder before standing and walking over with his arm outstretched. 

“Hey, it’s great to finally meet you, you know, without being thrown off a building.” He had a nice smile when he said it and grabbed Bucky’s hand in a firm grip. 

“I did that?” Bucky asked, quiet and horrified. 

“Yeah, but hey, no harm no foul.” Sam said, releasing Bucky’s hand and stepping aside. 

“It’s nice to see you again, James.” Natasha spoke up from where she sat, legs and arms crossed. Her face was stone cold so Bucky had a funny feeling that maybe she didn’t think it was so nice. And how the hell did she know his first name? 

Bucky gave a tight smile that looked more like a grimace. 

“You too.” He responded, but he was sure he’d never met her before. Just someone that looked like her, a long, long time ago. 

Tony tucked his phone in his pocket and clapped his hands, “Alright, now that the unnecessary formal introductions are out of the way,” He pivoted towards Steve, “we ready to start, cap?” 

Steve’s smile dropped as he eyed Tony with a look of annoyance. He nodded once and assigned different groups to different stations. 

Wanda and Natasha paired up as did Sam and Tony. Steve motioned for Bucky to follow him to the treadmills, where they sprinted so fast their legs blurred for nearly two hours. Every time one of them would up the speed of their machine, the other would make theirs faster. The rest of the group had finished their workout and watched in awed horror at the spectacle of two super soldiers racing. 

There was almost a burn in Bucky’s legs when it was over, almost a hint of exertion. It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. By Steve’s steady breathing, he could tell it wasn’t for him either. 

“Alright, switch it up. Go to another station.” Steve called, waving his hand in a circle to get the group moving. 

Bucky never liked training. It was always so pointless. Hydra always tried to pair him with another soldier to spar but he’d either punch out their teeth, break their limbs or kill them. He probably never stopped before they died. He couldn’t remember ever leaving a fight with the other person getting up, but the handlers always cheered. 

He needed to find a different hobby. The next day he went back to the gym alone. 

“At least you’re getting out.” Steve commented over his pancakes with a forced smile that said please don’t go without me. 

Bucky closed the door maybe a little too loud. 

Stark had assured when he first moved in that he was allowed anywhere on the compound, except for his labs because, well, they’re his labs. He reiterated it the day prior like he was sure Bucky forgot. Which is fair. Bucky did forget. Bucky forgets a lot of stuff. 

He needed to start slow, though, if he was going alone. He’d been to the gym before, knew it was safe and heavily secured with that robot thing watching over him. Tony said it was an AI, artificial intelligence, and that Bucky had nothing to worry about. Bucky wasn’t so trusting. 

But there was a small area that seemed tame. It was the bike station where Tony had hooked up some weird simulation to make it feel like one was biking outside. Bucky tried, but the air was too stuffy, and the fake spritz of water that was supposed to feel like mist felt like it was cutting his face and he could see the grains in the trees that the screen couldn’t quite filter through. 

Bucky huffed and jumped off the bike, stomping all the way up the stairs to his floor. The elevator was too damn stuffy. 

He slammed the door of their floor open and apparently he wasn’t gone for that long because Steve was still chowing on those pancakes. He had a forkful lifted to his awaiting mouth but snapped his attention towards Bucky. 

“How’d it go?” Steve asked, putting the fork back down on the plate. 

Bucky just shook his head, plopping down on the chair across from Steve. He grabbed a pancake off the serving plate and took a bite. 

“That’s fine. We just gotta try things until you find something you like.” Steve said with a reassuring smile. 

Later that day, he dragged Bucky into his designated art room. All it had was one easel, a box of paints, and a half-done sketch of the Statue of Liberty. 

“This ain’t exactly impressive, Stevie.” Bucky commented, picking up to examine a paint called ‘cadmium red’. 

“Well, it’s not done yet.” Steve said, sounding slightly offended. 

He got Bucky set up with his own canvas and set of paints while he worked on his own. He looked over an hour later to check in and saw Bucky with paint splattered all over his clothes and face, glaring down at his work. It was a giant brown glob.

“The goddamn colors wouldn’t stick.” Bucky muttered, then gave the painting a little kick for good measure. 

Steve slumped in his seat pouting and Bucky felt a little terrible for letting him down. It didn’t last long. Steve made it his new mission to find something Bucky enjoyed doing. 

The next day he took Bucky rock climbing. Well, to the little rock-climbing area in the gym because really was there anything this place didn’t have? 

It was going okay at first, not something exceptionally enjoyable, but when Bucky looked down the first time and couldn’t see the matt anymore his breathing got so frantic and his muscles tensed and cramped up so bad Steve had to help him down. 

“How about movies?” Steve offered, leaning over next to Bucky’s hunched, wheezing frame. His hands were on his knees as he tried to control his breathing from loud puffs and gasps to steady and quiet. “There’s nothing scary about movies.” 

Apparently, Steve had a list he needed to work through. Something about being introduced to the 21st century and catching up on all the stuff he missed. Bucky guessed he could benefit from that, too. 

“This one’s called ‘ _Alien,_ ,” Steve said, kneeling by the DVD player and examining the case. He looked over at Bucky and shrugged, “Nat suggested it.”  
Bucky didn’t mind it, in fact it was kinda fun, but seeing Steve pale up so bad when a little alien split open a man’s stomach and started screaming made Bucky feel queasy. They turned it off. 

“Maybe we could try a different one some other time.” Steve said, voice wobbly. He picked up his list and looked it over, “Maybe _Titanic_.” 

Steve kept suggesting things like writing stories, but Bucky could never get passed the word “the” before forgetting what the story was about. Then he talked about reading sci fi books because apparently Bucky had really liked them back in the day. Steve brought him a whole stack and while Bucky read through them like they were going out of style, it didn’t ease the restless feeling. 

He found his niche by accident one night when he sat on the remote and the food network popped up. It was some competition where they had to make cakes based off emojis. What the hell those were, Bucky had no clue, but watching them fumble for time and knock over pans and create masterpieces out of fondant and frosting was the most fun Bucky ever had. 

The next morning, Steve woke up to around twenty hand written recipes torn from Bucky’s journal hung on the fridge, three pies, four batches of cookies and one triple layer cake on the counter, and Bucky rolling out a fresh pie crust. 

“Morning, Stevie,” Bucky called as soon as he saw him, “You want Dutch apple or Southern pecan?” 

Steve stared in wide eyed bewilderment, unable to answer the question with anything but sputters. 

“Uh, I don’t – I think – is uh, is this why you didn’t come to bed?” 

Bucky shrugged, spinning to grab a bushel of apples from the fridge, “I guess. Was bored and the kitchen’s always stoked full of shit we don’t need. Figured why not?” 

Steve rolled his head to the side, exhaling and walking into the kitchen to grab the bushel and knife. Sure, why not? He chopped up the apples while Bucky began measuring the spices. 

In the next few hours, they had enough stuff to fill up their fridge, the fridge in the common room, and the fridge at the soup kitchen in town (that they had one of Stark’s staff deliver). 

They were a popular commodity in the kitchen, the whole stock disappearing within hours of putting it in the fridge. 

“Man, if you keep cooking like this,” Sam shook his cookie at Bucky, sprinkling crumbs all over the counter, “I’m gonna get so fat I won’t make it a foot off the ground.” 

Bucky raised an eyebrow, “You can’t fight on the ground?” 

Sam eyes widened, lips quirking in an almost smile, “So that’s how it is? Alright, tough guy, alright.” 

Dr. Kafka thought baking was a great idea. She informed him that it would help focus his energy into something positive, create something nice and something he’s proud of. And it gives him a task to do in those late nights where he has a bad dream and can’t think of anything except how much he hates himself. 

“Besides,” She said with a mischievous smile, “I love chocolate chip cookies.” 

And everything was good. He’d tried all the recipes on the fridge, him and Steve were sleeping in the same bed, he could leave his floor at any time of the day, but there was a gnawing at the back of his brain he couldn’t quite shake and every night it burned more and more. 

Natalia (he was sure that was her name. Seemed more like Natalia than Natasha) helped put the gnawing to rest. 

Jarvis informed Bucky one morning that his presence was desired in the common area. 

“By who?” He asked the ceiling. 

“Agent Romanoff.” The ceiling answered. 

No harm in going, Bucky figured, and it wasn’t like he was doing anything anyway. Well, besides watching Iron Chef reruns and waiting for Steve to wake up. 

Natasha was sitting at the dining table over a steaming cup of coffee while Sam was using the community kitchen to make eggs. There was a manila folder on the table beside her, but she set her focus on the dark wood. 

He sat gently in the seat across from her, not making a sound so he wouldn’t interrupt. Still, she looked up as soon as he sat and suddenly, he had her unwavering and unnerving attention. 

“Did I know you?” Bucky asked in a whisper before he even registered that he was speaking. 

She nodded slowly, eyes sharp and mouth firm. 

He couldn’t remember her. He thought of her face one night when he was falling asleep, but there was only children’s laughter and the burning smell of rubber.

“It’s alright, James,” She said, placing a cold, calloused hand on his forearm briefly, “It was a long time ago.” 

“You are older.” Bucky commented. 

“Hey, man, watch it,” Sam spoke up abruptly, “That’s no way to talk to a lady.” 

Natasha turned slowly to glare at Sam, “Just because we’re dating, doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly lost the ability to defend myself.” 

Sam smiled, “Sorry baby.” 

Natasha rolled her eyes, before giving Bucky a pointed look “I took no offense. Also,” she pushed the folder across the table, “a little birdie told me you might want this.”

Bucky looked at it puzzled before using one finger to drag it towards him. He glanced up at her through his lashes, finger gently holding up one end of the folder. She nodded for him to open it. 

He flicked it open and paperclipped at the top were pictures of his mother and his sister. Just as they were in his dreams. Maybe older. Definitely older. His mother’s hair wasn’t yet grey like it was in this picture and his sister looked like a middle-aged adult. 

He slammed it closed, holding his breath and staring off at the table just as Natasha had. 

“You do know what this means, don’t you?” She asked, just a tinge of sympathy laced in her voice. 

He knew. Of course, he knew but how the hell had she known? Sometimes it felt as though she could pick through his brain and see every single thought. 

He scooped up the file and rushed back to his room, avoiding the elevator and climbing the steps three at a time. 

He didn’t slam the door this time because Steve was still asleep, but he slid down it until he was on the floor and pried the file back open. 

_Winifred Barnes. Date of death: April 4, 1961. Cause of Death: Heart failure_

_Rebecca Barnes. Date of death: June 27, 1992. Cause of death: Lung cancer_

He didn’t kill them. He didn’t shoot them in the face. But they died thinking Bucky had, too. They died with the hope of seeing him beyond the glory gates but there was no way he’d make it through those now. 

The file slipped from his grip and sent pictures and papers splaying across the floor. His head fell forward, his neck no longer had the strength to hold it, as sobs ripped through his throat. He wailed so loud that Steve ran out of their room at the noise. 

“Bucky.” He breathed, rushing over to his side while avoiding the papers. He wrapped both arms around him tightly and Bucky responded in kind, gripping Steve’s shirt so tight it felt like it might rip. 

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve whispered into his hair, “It’s gonna be okay.” 

***

Tony had given them a catalogue to choose their furniture but neither Steve nor Bucky had the desire to open it until they found themselves with nothing to do on a Sunday morning. Steve had finished his paperwork for the week and Bucky just put a crumb cake in the oven. 

“I guess we should go through this, right?” Steve said from where he was slumped on the couch, picking up the catalogue from where he casted it on the coffee table. 

“I guess.” Bucky responded, plopping down next to Steve. He had flour on his face and between the metal plates of his hand that wasn’t coming out. He rubbed at it with a tea towel and stared at the page Steve had flicked open to. Immediately, a burnt orange arm chair with a white floral pattern and no extravagant details caught his attention. 

“What about this one?” Bucky asked, pressing his finger against the picture of the chair. 

Steve examined it for a second before nodding, a content smile on his face, “Yeah, that one’s real nice, Buck.” 

That’s how the ended up with a floor full of eclectic, mix-matched furniture with nothing special about them. They only did what they were supposed to; offer a place to sit. Steve and Bucky hated those pretentious furnishings Tony was nice enough to set them up with. 

The newest thing on their floor, besides the nice gadgets in their kitchen they couldn’t get rid of, were the books that stuffed their shelves. Steve selected a few non-fiction books on past presidents and thriller novels, while Bucky picked a variety of self-help books, cook books and sci-fis. They read them next to each other, Bucky in the armchair and Steve on their plaid, lumpy couch. Then, they’d talk about them during dinner. 

“I don’t get it. Why’s he gotta say it every time someone dies? And what does ‘so it goes’ even mean?” Steve complained through a mouthful of pork when he was halfway through Slaughterhouse-Five. 

“You’ll get it,” Bucky promised, having just finished the book the week prior. 

The next morning, while Bucky was reading The War of the Worlds, Steve broke the silence with, “Oooh, I get it.” 

He was staring at his fancy Stark tablet in one hand and the book in the other, nodding to himself. 

Bucky had to press his fist against his mouth, so Steve wouldn’t hear him laugh. 

They spent most of their days together, even when Steve had to work through the afternoons and Bucky had to go to therapy. They always read together in the morning, ate dinner in the evening and watched TV at night. 

They’d place bets, who would do the dishes or the laundry, on different contestants on _The Great British Baking Show_ , screaming at their screen over the soft narrations for their person to hurry the fuck up and don’t bake that, that’s shit and takes too long. 

One night when Steve fell asleep on Bucky’s shoulder during their third episode of the night, Bucky realized he didn’t have to think about being a person anymore. He just was. 

He smiled into Steve’s downy hair while he was snoring. 

This was warm. This was good. 

***

Dr. Kafka said he’s making amazing progress. 

He talked about his mother and his sister and swapped recipes. He hadn’t dreamed in a long time and when he did, they were so bland he couldn’t remember them by morning. More importantly, he was building a healthy relationship with Steve. 

“There’s still something I haven’t talked to him about yet,” Bucky stated while writing down the last ingredients needed for a layered mousse cake, “But I’m afraid he won’t react so well.” 

“You won’t know unless you talk to him,” Dr. Kafka answered, “And it’s going to keep eating at you until you do.” 

***

One night Bucky rolled over towards the body next to him and instead of hitting a tense muscle, he hit stiff ribs. 

He lurched up, seeing small Steve in bed beside him. He looked down at himself, expecting to see all human but the metal arm was still there. 

Small Steve only existed in history books and in Bucky’s dreams, when Steve was small Bucky was a person – a better person than he is now. 

“Steve?” Bucky hissed in the dark just to see if he would hear him. 

Steve opened his eyes and sat up too calmly like he wasn’t asleep at all. 

“Is this a dream?” Bucky asked even though he knew the answer. It felt hazy, somewhere between awake and asleep. Steve nodded, face soft and calm and Bucky deflated like a balloon. 

“There’s so many things I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Bucky confessed, “But I don’t even know where to start.” 

“That’s alright.” Steve whispered, he had the same voice as Steve now, but it seemed so different coming from this fragile body. So out of place. 

“No, it’s not,” Bucky retorted, “After everything I did to you, it’s not alright.” 

Steve didn’t say anything. His eyes stayed light and on Bucky. 

“And I don’t even really know what I did,” Bucky admitted. His eyes started to burn something awful, “But I’m so sorry, Stevie. I’m so sorry.” 

His face dropped and he pressed his metal hand against his mouth to make himself quiet while hot tears cut across his cheeks without permission. 

Steve curled his rough, long fingers, too big for his body, under Bucky’s jaw and lifted his face. His thumbs wiped away Bucky’s tears. he had a soft smile, like he couldn’t find the strength to smile any bigger. 

“It’s not me you need to be apologizing to.” 

With that, Bucky woke up, eyes softly blinking in the dark. Steve snored beside him, one arm cradled the back of his head while the other was across Bucky’s pillow. 

He just couldn’t take this quiet anymore. 

***

It had to be that morning, or he would never do it. 

Bucky stood in the kitchen, hands gripping the edge of the stove. He had meant to make eggs but couldn’t find the strength to crack them into the pan. He had to garner and save all the strength he could for what he was about to say. He just had to wait for Steve to wake up. 

He did, eventually, shuffling into the kitchen and beelining to the coffee pot. Bucky had gotten that started, at least. 

“Mornin’ Buck.” Steve yawned, pouring himself a cup and downing it just as quickly, “You making eggs?” 

Bucky grunted in acknowledgment, still staring at the stove, but didn’t answer. He took one deep, deep breath before finding his words. 

“You know, I don’t remember a lot,” Bucky stated, and Steve paused with hot coffee sitting in his mouth. “And the stuff I do is all…jumbled. Cluttered. I can’t tell you where our story ends or begins but I do know that something happened between us. I just can’t tell you what.” 

He looked at Steve, who’s cheeks were red and puffed out from the mouthful of joe. He swallowed it slowly, staring at Bucky in a loss of words. 

“I was kinda hoping you would fill me in.” Bucky finished. 

Steve blinked, clumsily placed his mug on the counter before turning back to Bucky, “Where do you want me to start?” 

“Anywhere,” Bucky said in a rush, “Anywhere that makes sense.” 

Steve nodded, smoothing a hand over his head. He jerked his head towards the table and walked towards it, Bucky following suit. They sat down face to face. Steve played with his fingers; cracking his knuckles and wringing his hands. He wouldn’t look at Bucky when he started talking. 

“Okay, well, we’d been – I guess – fooling around for a few years. Never anything serious and we never talked about it come morning but, I kinda,” He moved his hands and crinkled his forehead, trying to find the right words, “Got hopeful. Thought we could become something that we couldn’t. It always seemed like you wanted something, too. You were usually the one who started it.” 

Steve laughed with a bundle of nerves tickling his stomach. Bucky’s face was set in stone, too serious for Steve to calm down.  
“I wasn’t thinking marriage or anything, but maybe going steady in private. You’d go out with girls and tried to set me up, but I always thought it was for show. Couldn’t help getting jealous. And when you were about to leave, I finally worked up the courage to tell you.

“Of course, you lost it. You hollered at me for so long,” Steve’s lips pressed together, and he blinked really hard, “Said some things should be left unsaid and that we couldn’t do anything about it and that I was an idiot that would get us arrested just for thinking it. God, I was so embarrassed. And then you had the gall to go out on a date with some dame –” 

“Elizabeth?” Bucky asked, and Steve shrugged. 

“I don’t remember. You set me up with Bernie Jenkins even though we couldn’t stand each other in high school. Christ, I wanted to deck you so bad.” 

Bucky tilted his head, “I didn’t know you knew each other.” 

Steve laughed, a real one this time, “Don’t tell me that now, Buck, I might actually hit you.” 

Bucky smiled, “Sorry.” 

“Well, doesn’t matter much now.” Steve sighed, rubbing a hand on his forehead, “But when you told me that you cared too a few hours before you had to leave, I was so fucking mad I couldn’t stand it. I punched you, bruised up my knuckles, and I wanted to keep punching you, but I didn’t because I knew you’d let me.” 

He’d let Steve hit him now if he needed. Hell, he kind of wanted him to. He sure as hell deserved it. 

“I thought I’d never see you again, and I was almost glad. I got the serum just to spite you,” Steve laughed. 

“Of course you did, you little shit.” Bucky muttered. 

“But when I found you with Zola, God, I was so relieved. I thought it was a sign from the Great Beyond and we could finally talk about it, maybe even do something. There was a lot of things that happened during that war and no soldier was about to rat another one out, but you refused to talk about it – about us or about what they did. I hated you until the day you fell off that train. Then I didn’t think I would ever stop hurting…” 

Steve trailed off, staring hard at the table before cautiously glancing up to Bucky, who’s eyes were wide, and his stomach churned like rotten butter. 

“I never kissed you,” Bucky mumbled like he regretted it. 

Steve shook his head, “No, you never kissed me. You tried, and it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want it. More so I didn’t like the timing. I wouldn’t have stopped you if you tried earlier,” Steve wiped at his lips before licking them wet again, “Or if you tried again.” 

Bucky quirked an eyebrow and leaned forward in his chair, elbows hard against the table, “Really?” 

Steve nodded, and Bucky lurched forward, gripping Steve behind the neck to pull him close and lock their lips together. It was harsh and off center and their teeth clanked. But then Steve’s licked lips melted against Bucky’s, soft like cotton candy. 

His lips weren’t sticky, but damn were they sweet. 

***

Bucky looked at that blue anchor sitting on the shelf. Dr. Kafka’s son painted it for her for Mother’s Day last year and she loved it. 

“I think,” Bucky paused, gathering up all his thoughts into one fluid sentence, “I think he makes me happy.”

“You think?” Dr. Kafka questioned, arms folded over her chest. 

Bucky’s lips quirked, and eyes crinkled as he nodded, “He uh, yeah. He makes me feel good.” 

Dr. Kafka laughed in triumph, sitting up in her seat, “Well, look at that! Didn’t think I’d ever see you smile. Keep it up, Barnes, and you’re gonna radiate joy.”

And all Bucky could do was laugh and nod. 

***

“Gimme the cinnamon,” Bucky ordered, mixing a batter of pancakes for the team. They’d all come back from a mission in Australia where oversized kangaroos crashed through Sydney (great mission, Ross). Since Bucky wasn’t cleared to fight yet, and he didn’t think he’d join the team even when he was cleared, he was nominated to cook. Tony had insisted on pancakes, despite the rest of the team’s desire for pizza. 

“When you guys own the place, you can decide what we eat,” And none of them could argue with that. 

Steve plucked the cinnamon from the cabinet and pressed it into Bucky’s palm, smacking a kiss on his cheek in the process. 

Bucky shoved him away, pressing his lips together to hide a smile, “You stink, Rogers.” 

Steve grinned next to Bucky, staying glued to his side until Bucky rolled his eyes and pecked Steve’s cheek in kind. Steve grinned and scooted aside, eagerly awaiting Bucky’s next task. 

“Is the honeymoon phase supposed to last two months?” Sam muttered to Natasha, who lightly elbowed him in the ribs. 

Tony scoffed over his coffee “Oh, you can’t talk. You two were nauseating for at least half a year.” 

Steve smiled at Tony in thanks and Tony lifted his mug towards him. Things were getting better between them, though there was still some tension because Steve was a stubborn shit who wouldn’t forgive so easy. But they talked about it, The Accords, and Steve began to see Tony’s viewpoint as Tony began to see Steve’s. Neither completely agreed with the other, but they were more understanding. 

Bucky poured batter on the skillet and waited for the edges to firm up. Steve pressed against his side again (always so fucking needy) and peered down at the pancakes, pretending he was watching them, too. 

“Whaddaya want, punk?” Bucky grumbled, flipping one of the ready pancakes. 

“Nothing,” Steve said innocently, but shuffled even closer, fully pressed against Bucky and tilted his face towards him. 

Bucky rolled his eyes, twisting his head to kiss Steve on the lips. Steve smiled into it, turning his body fully. Bucky cupped his hands around Steve’s jaw and deepened it. 

Sam groaned, throwing a fork that whizzed right past them. Tony faked gagged, Wanda blushed and turned away, Natasha rolled her eyes and continued to type up a report of the mission. 

One of the pancakes began to burn up, black smoke pillowing around it. The alarm went off before anything could happen and Bucky broke the kiss to chuck the spatula at it. Jarvis conveniently watered the lone pancake, stopping the fire immediately. 

Bucky turned back to Steve and pressed their lips back together. 

“What about our pancakes?” Tony whined and Bucky lifted his left arm to flip him off while Steve laughed hot air against his mouth. 

***

_Strange new marvelous form_

_Slowly made, slowly worn_

_Till you see what I see_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: this chapter was almost entirely written while i ate graham crackers and watched bonanza with my grandpa. 
> 
> I had so much fun writing this! its actually the longest fanfiction ive ever written. also im in the process of writing a new story, a dad!bucky son!peter story. im working out the outline but should have it the first chapter written and up sometime this month lol 
> 
> thank you all so much for the kudos, comments and bookmarks! this has been a lot of fun and i hope you guys enjoyed the story 
> 
> until next time  
> -emily

**Author's Note:**

> what happens when you finish finals early and find an old story idea deep in the depths of your computer? you actually write it. part two should be up in two weeks (tops) and three shortly after that. 
> 
> (also sorry for the reupload i didn't realize ao3 posted it and i still had some things i wanted to edit first)  
>    
> 


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